Euromoney Institutional Investor plc, of the UK, has acquired Wealth-X for a cash consideration of $20m. The bolt-on acquisition complements BoardEx, the executive profiling business (for search firms) that it bought in February.
Wealth-X is a provider of data on high net worth individuals with clients ranging across banks, wealth managers and suppliers of luxury brands as well as non-profit organisations. Revenue is an estimated $12.7m with a operating profit of $0.8m this year, giving a 25 x multiple for the deal.
Euromoney provides data across global financial, tax and legal markets. It is now primarily focused on Pricing, Data and Market Intelligence, “providing information and analysis critical for business process and workflows”.
The listed company (market cap: £1.37bn) is forecast to achieve 2019 EBITDA of £112.1m on revenue of £402.8m, slightly down on 2017. This followed major disposals and the shareholding exit of DMGT which founded the company 50 years ago.
Euromoney investors are awaiting the much more significant news of the disposal of its Asset Management division, including Institutional Investor, BCA Research and Ned Davis Research, all brands which had once been among the company’s best performing core businesses. What is the cashed-up B2B company preparing buy with the proceeds?
