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PEI Media

PEI Media

June 2018
UK, £100m - £500m

Liberty advises the management team of PEI Media Group on their secondary buyout

LDC, the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investor, has exited its investment in PEI Media Group Ltd (‘PEI Media’) in a sale to Bridgepoint Development Capital. The deal value is undisclosed.

Private investment markets in real estate, infrastructure, private equity, and private debt - including specialist sector-specific activities within those private asset markets - are the key focus of PEI Media.  The Group has developed deep connections with international sources of alternative investment capital since its inception in 2001. Clients served include public sector and company pension plans, insurance groups, endowments and family offices - as well as leading private-asset fund managers who raise and deploy capital raise from institutional investors.

PEI was formed following a management buyout from Euromoney Institutional Investor plc. It has grown a diversified portfolio of alternative asset-focused publications, databases and branded events. Headquartered in London with offices in Hong Kong and New York, the company currently employs c. 180 people and has clients based in over 80 countries. The company's publications include PERE, Infrastructure Investor, Private Debt Investor, Private Equity International, Real Estate Capital, Private Funds Management, Agri Investor and Secondaries Investor, amongst others.

Over the past three years the business has significantly invested in the development of its digital and content capabilities, enhanced its subscription offering and doubled revenues from its events arm, which now has a portfolio of premium international annual conferences.

Liberty is delighted to have advised the management team, led by Tim McLoughlin, on all the management incentive aspects of this transaction, as they did on the LDC investment in 2015.

Commenting on the acquisition, PEI Media Chief Executive Tim McLoughlin said: "This is a pivotal moment for PEI.  As the global investment market continues to transform and mobilise towards Alternative Assets this is a great time to lock into a new partnership with Bridgepoint who bring an entirely new level of global expertise and experience in helping companies achieve scale and value-adding complexity. We're looking forward with real excitement to delivering the organic and acquisitive opportunities we've been working on with the Bridgepoint/BDC team.”

I have had great success in working with Liberty before so they were my immediate choice again on this transaction.   Their skill is in shaping the deal from Management-focussed standpoint but with the benefit of deep buy-side and sell-side appreciation, developed across many contemporaneous equity deals. I’ve found Liberty’s calm concision to be uniquely valuable in the cut and thrust of unfamiliar and complicated deal dynamics.

Tim McLoughlin
Chief Executive of PEI Media