Dow Jones to buy Wicks Business Information's Alternative Investor division for $85 million.Wicks Business Information this month announced that it has agreed to sell Alternative Investor to Dow Jones Dow Jones the best known of several U.S. indexes of movements in price on Wall Street. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 202] See : Finance & Company for $85 million, plus working capital and a potential performance-based payment of $5 million. An industry insider who wished to remain anonymous told NL/NL, "WBI (WeB Intermediaries) A technology from IBM that provides a framework for intermediate processing between the user's browser and the Web server. WBI provides a middleware standard that can be used for password and privacy management, for transcoding from one format to had to sell all or part of the company in order to satisfy its banks. The $85 million in sales proceeds will pay off the bank debt." The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2004. The Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc. initiated the transaction and represented Wicks in negotiations. The acquisitve Wicks Wicks Business Information, a Fairfield, Conn. company focused on acquiring and managing businesses with specialized informaton products serving the financial and general business sectors, successfully built Alternative Investor over the past four years. Created through the combination of three independent companies--Asset Alternatives, VentureOne and Venture Reporter--Alternative Investor has become "a powerful and profitable leader in providing data, analysis, news and events to the private equity community around the globe," in the words of Wicks CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Doug Manoni. "The quality and performance of the core products within Alternative Investor have been impressive over recent years despite a challenging business environment," Manoni said. The flagship products A primary product of a company, which is typically why the company was founded and/or what made it well known. For example, MS-DOS, Windows and the Microsoft Office suite have been flagship products of Microsoft. CorelDRAW is a flagship product of Corel Corporation. of Alternative Investor include four newsletters, including The Private Equity Analyst, the VentureSource database of venture-backed companies, and a portfolio of market-leading industry events sponsored by The Private Equity Analyst Conference. To be integrated with Dow Jones Newswires Dow Jones Newswires is the real-time financial news organization owned by Dow Jones. Founded in 1882, its primary competitors are Bloomberg L.P. and Reuters. The company reports more than 420,000 subscribers -- including brokers, traders, analysts and fund managers -- as of July Alternative Investor will be integrated with Dow Jones Newswires, which is expanding its capability to provide news and information to professionals that are currently unavailable on market-data computer terminals. "We have worked very hard over the past year to position Alternative Investor to capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. the surge of activity in the private equity arena, which has clearly begun," said Willy Burkhardt, president and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. of Wicks Business Information. The acquisition will significantly enhance the Dow Jones Newswires existing lineup of market-information products on closely held companies Closely held company A company who has a small group of controlling shareholders. In contrast, a widely-held firm has many shareholders. It is difficult or impossible to wage a proxy battle for any closely-held firm. . "For more than a century, Dow Jones has been the leader in coverage of publicly held companies. Now we will also be the leader in news and information on privately held firms, venture-capital markets and analysis of private capital," said L. Gordon Crovitz Louis Gordon Crovitz is the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and executive vice-president of Dow Jones. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. , senior vice president of Dow Jones Wicks still looking to acquire While our "industry insider" said he'd heard that "units other than Alternative Investor are currently for sale," Wicks said it will continue to manage and build its existing portfolio of businesses, while seeking new acquisition opportunities. Manoni said, "Alternative Investor represents a considerable component of our current portfolio; however, Wick Business Information has no intention of selling its remaining assets in the near future. We are looking forward to returning to the marketplace as an aggressive acquirer, with the strategy to strengthen our position in our current sectors and to pursue potential new segments." Wicks, 363 Reef Road, Fairfield, CT 06824, 203-255-4990, fax 203-255-4353, www.wicksbusinessinfo.com Dow Jones, 200 Liberty St., New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY 10281, 609-520-5051, www.dowjones.com Jordan, Edmiston, 150 E. 52nd St., New York, NY 10022, 212-754-0710, fax 212-754-0337, www.jegi.com |
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