Quayle Munro Advises AXIO Group On Its Sale Of RISI To Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC

Quayle Munro is pleased to announce that it has advised AXIO Group (“AXIO”), a portfolio company of Epiris Managers, on its sale of RISI, the leading price reporting agency to the global forest products market, to Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC (LSE:ERM) (“Euromoney”), an international business-to-business information group focused primarily on asset management, pricing, data and market intelligence. The transaction is subject to Hart-Scott-Rodino approval in the United States, which is expected to take approximately four weeks. On completion, Euromoney will pay $125 million in cash for RISI, funded from its existing revolving credit facility.

Founded in 1985, RISI has been part of AXIO since 2013, is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, and employs 150 people across the United States, China, Belgium, Finland and Brazil. RISI’s product suite consists of pricing data, mill intelligence and analytics as well as news, research and conferences covering the pulp, packaging, wood products, wood fibre and saw logs markets. Its price indices are critical to the daily business operations and trading activities of major paper and board, packaging and other forest-product companies.

Andrew Rashbass, CEO of Euromoney, said: “The acquisition of RISI is another important step in Euromoney’s strategy of building a portfolio of leading price reporting agencies in growing international markets. RISI is a very high-quality business which Euromoney is perfectly placed to develop further. We look forward to working with RISI management and employees around the world to offer the company’s customers products of the highest value.”

Henry Elkington, CEO of AXIO, an Epiris Managers business, said: “We knew Quayle Munro had close relationships with a number of the potential bidders for RISI. They did a great job managing both financial sponsors and trade bidders through the process. We are delighted that the RISI team will be able to continue to grow and develop the business within Euromoney.”

Quayle Munro has concluded 27 transactions in the energy and commodities data & analytics, software and services sector completing transactions with parties including Bloomberg, Dow Jones, Euromoney, Hellman & Friedman, IHS, RELX, S&P Global Platts, Thomson Reuters, Verisk Analytics and Warburg Pincus.