Informa Bid for UBM is £3.8bn

Business information firm Informa has made an official offer of £3.8 billion ($5.2 billion) in cash and stock to buy business events group UBM.

If the deal, which was announced earlier this week, goes ahead, Informa's academic publishing, global exhibitions, knowledge and networking, and business intelligence divisions will be merged with one-time NOP owner UBM, which now focuses solely on the event sector. The deal comes almost a decade after UBM attempted to buy Informa.

Terms would include shareholders receiving 1.083 Informa shares for each UBM share and 163 pence in cash, valuing UBM at 964 pence a share, a 30 percent premium to the 15th January closing price. Informa CEO Stephen Carter (pictured) commented: 'We are proposing the creation of a B2B Information Services Group, which will be ideally positioned to serve a market demanding ever greater operating scale and industry specialisation. The combined group will have the international reach, operational capabilities and cashflow to pursue the full growth opportunities this creates'.

Web sites: www.informa.com and www.ubm.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.