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Informa

Informa plc is a United Kingdom based publisher and conference company, with offices in more than 40 countries and more than 7,500 employees. Informa owns many other brands including Routledge, Lloyd's List, Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, ESI International, and Datamonitor. The Company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

Informa's oldest business started in 1734 when Lloyd's List, now one of the world's oldest continuously-running journals, began covering London shipping news. Informa itself was founded in 1998 when IBC Group plc and LLP Group plc merged together. Since then Informa has expanded greatly, including a 2004 merger with the publishing company Taylor & Francis and a 2005 acquisition of IIR Holdings, a human capital development company, for £768 million.

In October 2006, the company was approached by Springer Science and Business Media in a takeover bid, but in early November the Informa board rejected a 630p per share offer as too low. In early 2007, chairman Richard Hooper announced his retirement in mid-May, and after consulting with major shareholders, the company moved chief executive Peter Rigby to chairman and managing director David Gilbertson to Rigby's former post. Informa explained Rigby's move by the need to maintain management stability, although it has generated some controversy because it does not follow the advice of the UK's Combined Code on Corporate Governance.

On June 8, 2008, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that United Business Media (UBM) had proposed a merger with Informa to create a media group worth over £3 billion. The talks were confirmed by Informa in a press release that same day, but described as "preliminary". Previously on May 13 The Times had reported that the Carlyle Group and Apax Partners were considering bidding for the company. On June 17 talks with UBM ended because of the rapid rise in Informa's stock price after the public disclosure of the potential merger. On June 26 a private equity consortium consisting of Providence Equity Partners, the Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman proposed a takeover bid offering 506 pence per share.

Operations

The Company operates more than 10,000 conferences annually, and publishes newsletters, academic journals, commercial databases, and academic and business books. Topics covered include arts and humanities through social sciences to physical science and technology; and finance and the law through to telecommunications, maritime trade, energy, commodities and agriculture. Besides publishing, the group has several other interests represented by the several brands it owns across many countries. These brands (companies) work in the areas of performance improvement and management consulting. It has the following divisions: