Dods to Buy DeHavilland for £12.8m

UK political information provider Dods Group has agreed to acquire DeHavilland Political Intelligence, which offers services to monitor and track political issues. The deal is valued at £12.8m.

DeHavilland was founded in 1998, by Adam Afriyie, now Conservative MP for Windsor; and in 2005, the firm was acquired by Emap.

Its political intelligence and parliamentary monitoring service delivers news, information and bespoke research via an online platform and team of researchers, and is designed to help public affairs professionals track, monitor and evaluate the political environment.

Dods CEO Gerry Murray says the deal will provide 'significant identifiable synergies' and will boost Dods' own political intelligence offering in the digital information space. The acquisition will be financed through banking facilities and the placing of 200m new ordinary shares at 5.5p apiece.

Murray comments: 'DeHavilland comes with a high reputation for customer service and quality of information and will provide an ideal enhancement to our existing product portfolio. The integration of this business with Dods' Monitoring will provide significant service improvements for all of the combined businesses' clients.'

The Office of Fair Trading is currently examining whether the sale requires referral to the Competition Commission for investigation and report.

Web sites: www.dodsgroupplc.com and www.dehavilland.co.uk .