Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) has snapped up a leading legal business information provider for £650 million, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The FTSE 100 private equity fund manager has bought Law Business Research from Levine Leichtman Capital Partners – a buyout firm in Los Angeles. The deal closed last week and has yet to be formally announced.
Law Business Research was started in 1996 by Richard Davey, Callum Campbell and Sebastian O’Meara, a former BBC journalist. The company publishes journals and legal rankings, and sets up events for lawyers around the world.
It was bought by London-based Bowmark Capital in 2013, which then sold it to Leichtman in 2017. Bowmark’s managing partner Kevin Grassby said: ‘Good legal businesses are in high demand in London. There’s been a lot of deals in this information space.’
Last year Reuters snapped up legal tech research firm Casetext for £520 million, while private equity firm Inflexion sold legal ranking specialist Chambers and Partners to US investment group Abry Partners for about £400 million.
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A source close to the ICG deal added: ‘This space is on fire at the moment. The Square Mile is the legal capital of the world.’
It is the latest deal for ICG whose shares have soared 54 per cent in the past year, fuelled by investors hungry for access to the private equity sector.
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