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New Informa Talks Confirmed
A consortium including US private equity firms Providence Equity Partners Ltd. and Carlyle Group has confirmed it is in talks regarding a cash offer for Datamonitor-owner Informa Plc.
The firms stress that at this early stage there is no certainty that an offer will be made. However, investors appear to believe it will, pushing Informa shares up 6p to 435 pence in London, giving it a market value of around £1.85bn ($3.6 billion). Speculation among analysts suggests an offer might be in the region of £2.38bn or 560p a share, in cash. According to Bloomberg, the takeover 'may be the biggest leveraged buyout in the UK since the credit crunch', which has sent investors running for safer forms of debt.
Providence, the manager of a $12 billion leveraged buyout fund, and based in Providence, Rhode Island, threw its hat into the ring shortly after the announcement this week that publisher UBM was pulling out of merger talks with Informa.
Web sites: www.informa.com .
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