Delinian, Formerly Euromoney Institutional Investor, Sells Two Assets
By: Christiana Sciaudone
Delinian, the company formerly known as Euromoney Institutional Investor, sold the first two of 16 companies this month.
Informa bought IMN, a real estate events platform with topical and local events across the United States. Green Street, which offers commercial real estate intelligence, purchased IJGlobal, a provider of infrastructure and energy finance data and analysis. None of the companies responded to requests for comment.
In a statement, Green Street’s CEO said:
IJGlobal is committed to being the market’s most comprehensive source of infrastructure intelligence with a global presence across North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia, and its great talent and reputation for providing top-quality objective insights make a strong fit for Green Street. IJGlobal’s deep coverage of infrastructure accelerates our commitment to expanding property-level data and analytics across sectors and geographies and dramatically strengthens our increasing coverage of the infrastructure sector on a global basis. We are excited to integrate these capabilities to provide our clients with industry leading insight.
There was a bidding war for the assets and IJGlobal sold at the high end of investor expectations, according to a person familiar with the situation who declined to be named because the dealings are private. No valuations were provided, but business information subscriptions-driven businesses commanded a 13x to 16x EBITDA multiple, according to Collingwood’s 2024-2026 Media Acquisition Report released last year.
What makes this deal unique is that they’ve effectively sold a division of the business. This makes calculating true EBITDA complicated due to the shared services nature of having a large corporate entity—Delinian, in this case. Therefore, valuation was likely calculated using a contribution margin as a barometer.
This deal comes a couple of years after these assets last traded. In 2022, private equity firms Astorg and Epiris paid approximately $2 billion to take the Euromoney Institutional private. As part of that transaction, the two funds agreed to split the firms and completed that exercise in June 2023. Astorg retained Fastmarkets, which provides commodity pricing about metals, mining, forest products, etc., and generated ~$115 million in revenue in 2021. Epiris owned the remaining assets, which generated ~$248 million in revenue in 2021 and rebranded the company as Delinian.
“Epiris will seek to enhance Delinian by focusing on a brand-led growth strategy, targeting operational improvements and, where appropriate, acquisitions,” the firm said at the time.
“This is a significant moment for Delinian,” Delinian Chief Executive Officer Andrew Pinder said in a statement last year. “As an independent business we will be focused on the growth of our portfolio of trusted brands and delivering to our customers the exceptional content and insights they expect and for which our brands are renowned.”
Delinian is expected to complete the sale of its remaining properties (which are mostly subscription-based) by 2027. Brands include Institutional Investor, Airfinance Global, Euromoney, and others.
Industry observers expect a majority of the businesses will be sold to other information service providers, with some larger assets anticipated to attract the attention of private equity operators.
Last year, Delinian-owned techoraco, a digital infrastructure and technology events group, bought Ascend Global Media, which runs the Women in Tech World Series of events.
Activity for digital media mergers and acquisitions could start to see movement, especially with the U.S. Federal Reserve expected to announce lower interest rates this week. This would lower costs for buyers. In the United States, deals have been slow to come to fruition with both sellers unwilling to accept lower valuations and buyers uneasy about buying.
