B2B publisher Vitesse Media has acquired New York-based B2B title InvestmentNews for around $27.1 million as it seeks to gain more traction in the US market.
Vitesse Media, which owns GrowthBusiness.co.uk, smallbusiness.co.uk, Information Age, What Investment and Growth Company Investor says the deal is the ‘first major step’ of its expansion strategy.
Chief executive of Vitesse Media, Simon Stilwell, said the company was a ‘highly attractive’ acquisition because it had further potential to grow its audience, is a leading B2B brand in the US with an experienced management team and has high margin revenue streams already in place.
He said, ‘Since I joined Vitesse last year we have overhauled the board and management team as well as the strategy and this is the first major step in executing on our growth plan.
‘(InvestmentNews) fits well into the Vitesse stable and provides the company with the opportunity to pursue other bolt on opportunities to expand, especially in its events business. Its American presence further allows us to expand our reach geographically, a key aspect of our future strategy.
‘We look forward to building InvestmentNews into our existing communities as we shape Vitesse into the leading media, data and events leader we believe it can be.’
What does InvestmentNews do?
InvestmentNews is owned by family business Crain Communications, which owns B2B titles including Ad Age, AutoWeek and Modern Healthcare. The firm currently employs 42 staff members and has 545,000 unique visitors a month to its website and 1.6 million page views a month. Its print magazine is read by 150,000 people a week.
Vitesse and InvestmentNews run events – useful for Vitesse which is looking to expand its reach in the US and it’s believed Investment News’ large database of business professionals will aid this strategy.
Suzanne Siracuse, publisher of InvestmentNews said, ‘We are looking forward to the future and the many growth opportunities that lie ahead of us with Vitesse as our new owner.’
Vitesse will rename to Bonhill Group plc when the deal is concluded at the middle of August, subject to shareholder approval.
