Dow Jones’ Sale Price Of Fin Solutions Shockingly Low: $13.5 Million, On $14 Million of Revs
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Yesterday the news came out that Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS), as part of its continued string of divestitures, had sold off its Online Financial Solutions business to Interactive Data Corp. The OFS assets were formerly part of MarketWatch Licensing Services, before DJ bought MarketWatch in 2005. Most of the parts sold came in from MarketWatch’s 2003 $103 million acquisition of Pinnacor.
SEE ALSO: Dow Jones’ Garage Sale Continues, As Online Financial-Solutions Unit Goes To Interactive Data
Now, the price of the sale, courtesy of an SEC filing from IDC, and it is a bit of a shocker: $13.5 million in cash. And the company also says the unit will generate revenues of about $14 million for 2009, and is expected to be profitable. So why such a low price on sale? DJ really really wanted the unit off its hands, it seems. We have a query in to DJ for clarification. Update: DJ would not comment on the sale price.
Two months ago, content management company YellowBrix acquired Dow Jones’ news syndicator. DJ bought Screaming Media six years ago for $103 million. Would be interested to see the price on that now.
Meanwhile, I floated a theory on Twitter yesterday: since DJ is divesting off non core assets with such gumption, maybe it is time they offload Marketwatch as well, since it increasingly is duplicative of what WSJ does (despite whatever Marketwatch’s spin on its positioning). And who would be a perfect buyer? CBS (NYSE: CBS), which once held a stake in Marketwatch, and hasn’t been able to burn the charts with its new-ish site Moneywatch site. Of course now that DJ has sold off some parts of the Marketwatch enterprise solutions for such a low price, expect the sale price of Marketwatch to be in double digit millions, at best, if it happens, nowhere near $520 million it got in 2004.
Posted In: Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions, Companies, News Corp., Dow Jones, idc, marketwatch
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