Gartner Sells Two Firms Including More of CEB

Gartner has sold two of its businesses: learning and development analytics firm Metrics That Matter (MTM) to 'Learning Journey Analytics' solutions firm Explorance, and CEB Challenger sales training to investor Marlin Equity Partners.

MTM offers an SaaS-based platform using proprietary methods and benchmarks to help corporates to continually measure, evaluate and enhance their L&D investment. Montreal, Canada-based Explorance says buying the firm will help it to offer clients 'an even more robust and specialized solution' across market segments. 'We see MTM as a uniquely positioned partner to further complement our solution and support our mission', says Samer Saab, CEO of Explorance.

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, subject to customary closing conditions.

CEB Challenger offers a suite of professional skills development, intelligence and workflow solutions based on the Challenger and Effortless Experience sales and marketing methodologies. The company is headquartered in Arlington, VA with additional offices in Chicago, London, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney.

Gartner acquired best practice and talent management insights firm CEB in 2017 for around $2.6bn and has since divested a number of its divisions. At the time of the buy Chief Executive Gene Hall (pictured) said the combination would 'create the leading global research and advisory company for all major functions in the enterprise'.

CEO Simon Frewer states: 'Marlin shares our strategic vision of continuing to expand the product portfolio and tech-enabled service offerings and accelerating our pace of innovation. Their strong history of growing technology businesses provides us with a solid foundation to succeed as an independent company'.

Marlin Equity Partners is headquartered in Los Angeles, California with an additional office in London. NYC-based investment bank JEGI represented Gartner in both transactions. The firms did not disclose the terms of either deal.

Web sites: www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/metrics-that-matter , www.explorance.com , www.gartner.com/en/sales-service/challenger and www.marlinequity.com .