Castanea and Boston Ventures Exit Medley Global Advisors
Pearson Plc is buying the company, reflecting publisher’s push into information and analytics.
February 5, 2010
Castanea Partners and Boston Ventures exited their investment in Medley Global Advisors, selling the information and analytics company to Pearson Plc.
Medley is described as a provider of geopolitical and macroeconomic policy information, serving the financial services space. The company was formed by Richard Medley, who had been the chief political strategist for Soros Fund Management and was a former policy adviser to the US House Banking Committee and Senate Democratic Leadership. Medley, however, departed soon after the sale to Castanea and Boston Ventures.
Terms of the transaction were not made public. Pearson spokesman Charles Goldsmith said PricewaterhouseCoopers served as the buy-side adviser, while Morgan Lewis Bockius provided legal counsel. He would not disclose the advisers to the sellers, and inquiries to the other parties involved were not immediately returned by press time.
For Pearson, the acquisition comes soon after Interactive Data Corp. went on the block. Pearson controls 61% of IDC, a NYSE-listed, Bedford, Mass.-based financial analytics provider. Analysts that cover IDC’s stock have suggested that Pearson would prefer a merger for IDC, which would allow the company to maintain a stake and ostensibly avoid a hefty tax liability.
The acquisition of Medley reflects an ongoing push from publishers to move into the analytics space. Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg and McGraw-Hill, for instance, are reported to be candidates to acquire RiskMetrics, which hired Evercore to evaluate alternatives. Morningstar also acquired a stake in PitchBook Data late last year, and Seguin Partners’ carveout of CFO Publishing is expected to be a precursor to the standalone company’s renewed efforts into research and databases.
Castanea and Boston Ventures originally acquired Medley in 2005, bringing Goldman Sachs in as a minority stakeholder. The goal at the time was to broaden the company’s coverage.
Pearson, in its press release, identified that Medley had gross assets of $7.3 million.
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