XIO Group agrees JD Power sale to Thoma Bravo

The size of the transaction was not disclosed, but Reuters reported in May that XIO was seeking an enterprise valuation of $1.9 billion. It bought the business in 2016 for $1.1 billion from McGraw Hill Financial, which wanted to concentrate on its financial data operations.

J.D. Power is a global marketing information services company providing performance improvement, social media and customer satisfaction insights and solutions to corporate clients. It is best known for automotive industry coverage. The company is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California and has 16 branch offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and South America. J.D. Power employs more than 800 analysts, statisticians, economists, consultants and other experts.

Thoma Bravo – which has more than $30 billion under management across various funds – will support ongoing efforts by the company to expand its analytics and product offerings, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud and big data. J.D. Power’s existing management team will rollover their equity interests in the company.

"We saw J.D. Power as an iconic brand with strong upside potential and have been greatly impressed with the management team's accelerating the digitization of the platform, including the successful implementation of AI initiatives and introduction of innovative analytics products," said Joseph Pacini, a spokesperson XIO, in a statement.

XIO was established in 2014 and – at the time of the J.D. Power acquisition – was led by Pacini, formerly head of the Asia Pacific alternative investments strategy group at BlackRock, and Athene Li, previously an executive director at Olympus Capital. It is headquartered in London and has operations in Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Hong Kong and mainland China.

The firm claims to have $5 billion in committed capital for investments in North America and Europe-based assets that have growth potential in emerging markets such as Asia. J.D. Power is one of three portfolio companies mentioned on the XIO website. The others – both completed in 2015 – are the Compo Expert fertilizer business, which was acquired from Triton Partners, and medical device manufacturer Lumenis.

A ILS1.48 billion ($387 million) acquisition of Israeli investment firm Meitav Dash was announced in 2017 but it fell through, with the seller claiming that XIO had changed the terms of the deal.

XIO has also faced scrutiny over the makeup of its LP base. Pacini previously said the capital came from a "diversified set of institutional investors just like any private equity firm." Subsequent reports claimed the firm had substantial Chinese backing. The Reuters report from May claimed that only a small portion of XIO’s capital now comes from Chinese sources.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Trade sale
• North America
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