cogint Spins Off Red Violet to Focus on Fluent

US data intelligence specialist cogint has completed the spin-off of its data and analytics operations and assets into a separate company called Red Violet. This leaves people-based insights platform Fluent as cogint's sole operating business.

cogint, which was formerly known as IDI, acquired Fluent in 2015 for $100m in cash. Last September, cogint and Hong Kong-based marcoms firm BlueFocus announced plans to combine assets, but the deal was then rejected by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), because of the current 'political climate' regarding China-based acquirers of US companies. The two firms had planned to combine assets - cogint's Fluent, and BlueFocus' Canadian marcoms company Vision7 and its UK-based social media agency We Are Social - to form a new global marketing services organization, while cogint's data and analytics/risk management operations would be spun off into a separate company called Red Violet.

The spin-off has now taken place and Fluent has appointed a new management team, including its co-founders Ryan Schulke as CEO and Matthew Conlin as President, alongside former Infogroup/Merkle exec Don Patrick as COO, and existing CFO Ryan Perfit. Schulke and Conlin are joined on the Board by Peter Benz and Don Mathis and a new appointee, Andrew Frawley, who previously served as CEO of database marketing firm Epsilon.

Last month, Schulke acquired 100,000 cogint shares and commented: 'Fluent's business is very strong and the outlook for the company's future has never been brighter in my view. Given the announcement of the accelerated spin-off of cogint's risk management business, I saw this as an incredible opportunity to increase my position in cogint as I lead Fluent into a new chapter as a standalone public company'.

Web sites: www.cogint.com and www.fluentco.com .