Investment bankers, who make their profits by quietly lubricating the wheels of M&A, are not supposed to make the news. But this week’s announced merger of the 37-year-old JEGI Clarity – arguably the transatlantic market leader among media-information-communications dealmakers – with the 12-year-old Leonis Partners (a software, fintech, technology specialist) may be the exception.
The two firms are complementary and the combined business – with a team of 100 professionals at offices in New York, Boston, London and Sydney – will be known as JEGI Clarity Leonis (JCL) when the deal completes probably by June. Collectively, the two firms completed 35 transactions in 2024, worth a claimed $5bn. JCL will focus on transactions of $50-500mn, “while maintaining the capacity to manage deals” beyond that range.
JEGI founder Wilma Jordan becomes Executive Chair of the merged company whose co-CEOs will be Leonis managing partner Robert Koven and Scott Mozarsky, a managing director at JEGI Clarity. They and their teams were celebrating in New York this week at JEGI’s 600-strong 21st Annual Media and Technology Conference whose CEO speakers included: Steve Swartz, of Hearst; Stephen Carter, of Informa; Justin Smith, of Semafor; and Paul Bascobert, of Reuters.
The merger, which has just been approved by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, now awaits clearance from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the US.
It’s a landmark deal, not least for Jordan, the doyenne of media M&A, who launched what was long known as the Jordan Edmiston Group in 1987 after cutting her teeth in magazine publishing. Her firm has completed more than 800 transactions in the past 35 years.
It had started with B2C deals on behalf of ABC / Capital Cities as the biggest client, for which JEGI sold their substantial magazine businesses. These included Institutional Investor, sold first to Disney and then to Euromoney in 1997, after which JEGI largely migrated to B2B publishing and events for two decades. It has since broadened into tech, information, marketing and legal services.
JEGI’s largest transaction was the $950mn sale of Nielsen events to Onex in 2013, but many other large B2B deals included: the sale of World 50 to Morgan Stanley, reportedly for more than $500mn; the $350mn Penwell sale to Clarion Events in 2018; and CEB/ Gartner’s $295mn acquisition in 2016 of Evanta (which JEGI actually sold no fewer than three times, first to DMGT, then onto the Leeds family private equity firm and then to Gartner – all under the same CEO, Bob Dethlefs). Jordan’s relationship with DMGT (which began when she was a rising star executive on Esquire magazine, once owned by the UK publisher) extended across many of its investments and divestments of trade shows and B2B information services over the past three decades.
Leonis, which has 30 investment professionals, has completed 100 transactions since its foundation in 2012. During the past two years, its 30 deals have had an enterprise value of $3bn. Robert Koven joined Leonis in 2012 after working for JP Morgan and Lazard Freres and “realized that the techniques I learned could be applied to growing technology businesses in the middle market where, historically, access to premier M&A and capital advice was limited. From its founding, the company has grown quickly and emerged as a leader in technology M&A and capital raising, offering customized solutions with unconflicted advice.”
While financial details of the ‘young and old’ marriage have not been released, it might be assumed that actual shareholdings may change over time on some kind of earnout. No job losses are planned.
The new company’s executives will, however, be hoping for a resurgence in the number of M&A transactions worldwide. According to Statista, the total has declined for four consecutive years. Last year’s 639 completed deals is thought to have been the lowest number since 2006. Jordan has said she had wanted her firm to get bigger and also to have a “software and technology component” after a poor year for the M&A market in 2023. It picked up a bit last year. But she sees a good recovery for B2B deals in 2025 because of the pent-up capital which will otherwise have to be returned to investors by private equity firms.
However that turns out, the JEGI founder (who will herself step back from frontline dealmaking) is confident about the future of JCL – and especially the new co-CEO: “Robert is very energetic. When I met him and sat down at our first breakfast together, he said ‘I really want to grow my firm. We watched your firm for many years and tried to copy some of the things you guys have done’. And it was just one of those serendipitous meetings where all things came together and checked all the boxes.”
**Colin Morrison is on the advisory board of JEGI Clarity.
