Forrester Buys JupiterResearch For $23 Million
Forrester Research has bought rival tech and media analyst JupiterResearch along with its parent company, JUPR Holdings, from MCG Capital Corporation for $23 million in cash. The announcement was made by the Jordan, Edmiston Group, which managed the deal. In addition to the cash, the purchase also covers JupiterResearch’s liabilities. Also, the $23 million figure is subject to post-closing adjustments. JupiterResearch has 83 employees and 2007 revenues of approximately $14 million. Forrester says it had $212 million in revenue last year, and has more than 1,000 employees. No word yet on whether any layoffs will result from the merger. JupiterResearch will be folded into Forrester’s Marketing & Strategy Client Group, which contributed $46.4 million to Forrester’s revenue in 2007. Release.
Alan Meckler sold Jupiter Research to MCG two years ago for around $10 million, where it was rolled up with Kagan, another MCG portfolio company…Kagan was later sold off to SNL Financial.
Disclaimer: The Jordan, Edmiston Group is a sponsor of ours.
Posted In: Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions, Research & Metrics, Research, forrester, jupiterresearch
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Comments (8)
Jul 31, 2008 10:15 AM
Seems cheap. Anymore details on the transaction? Does this mean that all these research companies aren’t making that much in terms of subs? Why sell now?
Jul 31, 2008 10:41 AM
Sounds like a very distressed sale. Not sure why that is but that is the real story here.
Jul 31, 2008 10:44 AM
does paid content have an inside track ?
Jul 31, 2008 12:07 PM
End of an era.
I remember when everyone at Jupiter thought they would put Forrester out of business back in the day.
Jul 31, 2008 3:39 PM
Very good deal for Forrestor.
Good deal for Jupiter too, now that are working with a better company with better infrastructure already in place.
Jul 31, 2008 5:32 PM
super good deal for forrester. feels like jupiter could have got more than $23M
Jul 31, 2008 6:48 PM
At $14 million in revenue, it seems like Jupiter’s actual business was a lot smaller than their media presence would indicate. With a few high profile names and some active blogs, they did a good job of making themselves look bigger than they actually were.
Probably a smart time for them to sell. I wouldn’t want to be a small firm purely dependent on selling high priced research going into a recession. If your a manager and your budget is cut, you might think twice about shelling out $1500 for a mobile search ad forecast.
Aug 3, 2008 5:18 PM
This is a smart move on Forrester’s part for a number of reasons (e.g., getting smart analysts with reputations, adding sales reps with rolodexes, and adding clients to cross-sell). However, it is not a big deal in terms of impact on the analyst landscape. For more analysis check out SageCircle’s blog posts on the Forrester / Jupiter M&A;event at SageCircle’s blog:
* Forrester buying Jupiter - smart, but not a big deal
* Which acqusitions in the analyst industry were winners or duds?
As to the purchase price. Remember, consulting firms do not get the multiples of a software company or a Web 2.0 high flyer. Forrester paid 1.6x revenues, which is higher than the 1.3x revenues that Gartner paid for META Group and the 0.74x that Forrester paid for Giga.
Carter Lusher
Strategist
SageCircle - the experts on the IT industry analysts and analyst relations best practices
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