Winsight, a B2B information provider in the foodservice and allied retail industries, will combine with London-based Informa, a publicly traded global events, digital products and academic services firm. Informa acquired Winsight from HPS Investment Partners and the combination with Informa’s existing B2B foodservice portfolio establishes a B2B business.
Winsight CEO Mike Wood will continue to lead the business, which will become part of the Informa Connect division.
Headquartered in Chicago, Winsight provides information, market intelligence, professional events and media to the restaurant, noncommercial foodservice, convenience retailing and grocery industries. The company offers a multi-channel portfolio of brands across research, data and analytics, events, websites, newsletters and content marketing solutions. With nearly 3,000 customers, Winsight’s solutions enable customers to measure and predict industry dynamics, drive engagement with target audiences, refine business development strategies and create networking opportunities between buyers and sellers.
Informa currently owns established foodservice media brands and tradeshows and intends to operate Winsight brands alongside its current brands. Technomic, Winsight’s data and insights business, will be Informa’s first insights business dedicated to foodservice. Winsight will continue to operate business as usual through 2023 and will rebrand as Informa in 2024 once integration planning is complete.
“Our team is incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved since originally acquiring our founding brands in 2012,” Wood said. “Our rapid recovery to pre-pandemic performance levels is a testament to the essential qualities of our products and services and the caliber of our employees. We are excited to build upon this momentum as part of Informa, whose global reach, existing market presence and growth minded philosophy will only allow us to do more and better for our clients”.
“At Informa, our purpose is to champion the specialist. This new combination of Informa’s existing foodservice assets with Winsight’s outstanding media, event and data assets provides the capability to create even more market leading products and services that will better serve the needs of the foodservice industry and its customers,” Andrew Mullins, CEO of Informa Connect, said. “We are very excited to be bringing together such well respected market leading brands and the talented teams that support them to facilitate the creation of even greater customer value and exciting new growth opportunities for all.”
Winsight was advised by BrightTower (exclusive financial advisor) and Latham & Watkins (legal advisor).
