We have heard today (from three sources) that IDG, the parent of IDC, intends to buy Silver Lake Partners’ share in Gartner and the holdings of CEO Eugene Hall. As part of the deal Neil Bradford, former head of Forrester Americas, and Anthony Parslow, until recently head of Datamonitor, will replace Gene Hall as co-CEOs. Bradford will direct the US business; Parslow (who serves on IDG’s board) will head Gartner’s troubled operations outside the Americas. This is obviously news that will shape the industry – you have seen it first here!
Generally speaking, this isn’t a surprise.
– Silver Lake was, for a long time, the largest shareholder in Gartner. As the firm’s stock price rose it aimed to cash in its gains. Despite a large share buy-back by Gartner, the value of the shares has now fallen. Silver Lake is looking for opportunities to exit. IDG will pay a 7% premium over the current Gartner stock price.
– IDG has a strategic orientation towards expanding its share of the analyst industry. It narrowly lost out to Gartner in bidding for META Group. It sees the possibility for a roll-up spanning different price points across the value chain. IDC’s end-user Insights businesses could gain from the custom-consulting and mid-market work that Gartner cannot do economically. The businesses could also benefit from common base data, as the Datamonitor companies do.
– Gene Hall has revolutionised Gartner, and taken it to a new level. It’s a good time for him to cash in and move on.
However, we are skeptical of claims that IDG will merge IDC and Gartner. There are two strong brands with different positions. The main opportunity in the closer co-operation is for IDG’s non-IDC services to reuse and promote Gartner research, and to use IDG’s events business to rebuild Gartner’s now-sold vision events business.
To see a copy of IDG’s statement, please click here:
http://tinyurl.com/2q9j9y
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April’s fool 🙂
ho ho ho
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Actually I heard that James at Redmonk had won the Irish Lottery and going to buy Gartner. Then all the analysts would have to deliver their research via Twitter.
Brilliant April fool… like an idiot, I was sucked in for a couple of sentences 🙂
Thanks Phil. This was the best day ever for our blog’s readership and, within 24 hours, it’s had more than twice as many readers as any other post. It’s works out to be an excellent way to raise awareness of the blog. Luckily, not of the parties mentioned had a bad word to say about it.
Considering how well IDC has been doing of late, it only makes sense that the money behind Gartner looks to a new source of management talent. Take a look at an independent opinion:
http://www.idc.com/research/outsell.jsp
P.S. How amazing: three years later this is still the best-read article on the site, after those announcing our Analyst of the Year results. 2,607 views! Message me if you have ideas for other April Fool postings 😉