Categories: OLD Media Moves

Moody’s leads in bidding for Dealreporter, Mergermarket parent

Credit rating agency Fitch has pulled out of the bidding for financial media firm Acuris, leaving rival Moody’s as one of the strongest contenders to win the more than $1.30 billion deal, reports Pamela Barbaglia of Reuters.

Barbaglia writes, “The U.S. ratings agency is now vying with ION Trading – a software provider for electronic trading, pricing and risk management – to win control, the sources said.

“Fitch Ratings failed to secure the backing of its owner Hearst, the publisher of San Francisco Chronicle and Cosmopolitan, which pulled the plug on the deal due to its hefty price tag, the sources said.

“Big buyout funds have also struggled to match BC Partners’ price expectations and while most investors have walked away, the sources said some funds were allowed to progress in the auction, without naming them.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.