• by Tony Silber , February 11, 2022

Informa, the global publishing, business intelligence and events company, announced late last week that it’s selling its pharma intelligence unit to the private-equity firm Warburg Pincus for about $2.5 billion.

The pharma unit is part of the company’s larger intelligence division, which Informa said in December it would divest. Over the past two months, the company said, it’s received significant interest in the pharma-intelligence business, which provides specialist intelligence and data for clinical trials, drug development and regulatory compliance. In 2020, the unit accounted for approximately 40% of Informa Intelligence’s reported divisional revenues of nearly $415 million.

In the December announcement, Informa outlined what it calls its GAP II strategy, a four-year roadmap where it will focus on two higher-growth markets: academic markets & knowledge services, and B2B markets & digital services, which includes the tradeshow division Informa Markets, plus Informa Connect, a marketing-services business, and Informa Tech, covering the technology sectors.

Following the separation from the pharma intelligence unit, Informa will move to the next phase, divesting its financial intelligence business, which includes the brands EPFR Global, IGM and Zephyr. Not included in that impending divestment is the retail banking joint venture, Curinos.

“Pharma intelligenceplays a critical role in supporting and maintaining the ecosystem that surrounds clinical trials, drug development and regulatory compliance, and we intend to invest and significantly grow the business and its product offerings," Warburg Pincus co-head of Europe Adarsh Sarma said in a press release.

Informa simultaneously announced a stock buyback, which the company said will serve to return to shareholders a proportion of the proceeds from the pharma intelligence unit’s divestment. The buyback program starts immediately and will run through June. The maximum amount of money allocated to the buyback is roughly $136 million, and the maximum number of shares to be repurchased is 150 million. The company trades on the London Stock Exchange, where shares were priced around $8.00 midday Friday.

Informa will report full-year results for 2021 on March 15.