Progressive in Talks to Buy Healthcare BI Firm

UK-based business media and insight group Progressive Digital Media is in 'advanced discussions' about the possible acquisition of healthcare business information provider GlobalData from its owners Mike Danson and Wayne Lloyd.

Danson (pictured) is the founder of Progressive, and sold the business in 2009 to marketing services group TMN, which owned consumer and shopper insights business Canadean Custom Solutions (formerly the iD Factor) and full service agency iCD. At the time, Danson was Progressive's sole shareholder and a non-executive director (NED) of TMN, having previously founded market intelligence firm Datamonitor. Publishing group Informa acquired Datamonitor in 2007 for £502m, and this summer sold its Datamonitor Financial, Datamonitor Consumer, MarketLine and Verdict businesses to Progressive for £25m. Lloyd was previously President of Datamonitor for more than fifteen years.

Danson and Lloyd's firm GlobalData has a team of more than 1,000 researchers, market analysts and consultants, who provide energy and healthcare industry insight, market forecasts and analysis on the latest industry trends and developments. It is expected that the acquisition would be financed by issuing around 26 million new ordinary shares in Progressive to Danson and Lloyd, representing c.34.2% of the company's current issued share capital. At the same time, Progressive is considering the possible disposal of a number of its B2B print assets to a private company controlled by Danson and Lloyd, through a £4.5m inter-company loan.

Both the acquisition and disposal will require the approval of Progressive's shareholders. Assuming the deals go ahead, Progressive will be renamed GlobalData, Danson will become CEO, current CEO Simon Pyper will become Chief Financial Officer, and Lloyd will become MD of the group's US operations, with specific responsibility for GlobalData's Healthcare business. Bernard Cragg, currently Progressive's senior NED, will be appointed as Chairman.

Web sites: www.progressivedigitalmedia.com and www.globaldata.com .