• June 13, 1969: Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates is founded as a non-profit organization wholly owned by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. • July 14, 1979: McGraw-Hill announces it plans to buy Data Resources, a major competitor of Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates for about $103 million. • December 18, 1979: It is announced that University of Pennsylvania plans to sell its controlling interest in Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, and has held talks with three potential buyers. • June 12, 1980: Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., a privately held publishing and broadcasting company, purchased Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates Inc. from the University of Pennsylvania for an undisclosed amount. The University said it retained a minority interest. Ziff announced that Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates would be the cornerstone of a new company, Strategic Information, which planned to spend tens of millions of dollars in the next five to six years to acquire state of the art computer equipment, according to Dennis O'Brien, who was named COO and Executive Vice President. • June 20, 1983: CISI Wharton, part of the French CEA, announces plans to invest US$12 million over the next three years to position the newly enlarged entity as one of the world's leading economic forecasters. • November 16, 1986: It is announced that WEF Associates, a group of European investors (the Salem family) advised by M Gerard Vila, would acquire CISI Wharton. At the time, CISI Wharton was described as having generated losses of FFr 100m in 1984-85 on revenue of FFr 94m, and employing 200 people. • April 1, 1987: WEF Associates AG, the parent of Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, announced that it acquired Chase Econometrics from Chase Manhattan Bank N.A., a unit of Chase Manhattan Corp, and that the new entity would be called WEFA-CEIS, Wharton Consulting and Economic Consulting and Economic Information Services. Chase Econometrics had been founded by Michael Kaye Evans, who had previously collaborated with Klein at Wharton but parted ways. An earlier magazine article had described Wharton Econometrics as "austere and academic", Data Resources as "cerebral and expanding", and Chase as "outspoken and controversial". Lawrence Chimerine, chairman of Chase Econometrics, became chairman and CEO, of the new business, while Lawrence Klein was positioned to act as a consultant and continue to oversee the board. • April 11, 1987: Wharton Econometrics and Chase Econometrics agreed to call the merged companies Wharton Economics rather than the originally proposed name, WEFA-CEIS. According to the CEO Lawrence Chimerin, the term "econometrics" was dropped, because the consolidated company would broaden its services from econometric modeling to areas such as financial analysis, planning support, and software development. • August 2, 1994: Information Partners, a private investment group affiliated with
Bain Capital and focused on investments and acquisitions in the information services marketplace, announced that it had completed the purchase of The WEFA Group. The transaction was later valued at US$20 million. • January 16, 1997: Primark Corporation, headed by chairman and CEO Joseph E. Kasputys, announced it entered into an agreement to acquire WEFA Holdings Inc. from Bain Capital Inc. and other shareholders in a US$45 million cash transaction. According to Primark, WEFA had revenues of about US$29 million in 1996 and was profitable. • Early-1997 to June 1998: Primark holds discussions with several prospective buyers, including Reed Elsevier. Reed Elsevier withdrew its offer while it dealt with a possible merger with Wolters Kluwer. • June 5, 2000:
The Thomson Corporation announced that it would acquire Primark Corporation. At this point, Primark's key brands included A-T Financial Information, Baseline, Disclosure, Datastream, Global Access, GlobalTOPIC, I/B/E/S, MarketEye, PIMS, WEFA, Worldscope and Vestek. Thomson announced that it was looking at how it could integrate Primark's offerings with its own brands such as ILX and First Call. It was announced that Thomson was acquiring Primark for approximately US$842 million, and the assumption of $235 million in Primark debt, while Primark had 1999 revenues of $495 million. Joseph E. Kasputys, Primark's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, became Chairman of Thomson Financial. • May 7, 2001:
Global Insight announced it would acquire DRI and WEFA from their respective parent companies to form its first subsidiary, DRI-WEFA Inc. DRI, formerly known as
Data Resources Inc. was at this point a unit of
The McGraw-Hill Companies, a New York publisher and financial services company, while WEFA was a unit of
The Thomson Corporation, a Toronto diversified information company. Joseph Kasputys was the chairman and main shareholder in
Global Insight and led the acquisition. At the time of the merger, Kasputys, who had previous roles as a senior executive of both WEFA and DRI, said that he had wanted to bring together DRI and WEFA since 1990. Kasputys had also been executive vice president of McGraw-Hill until 1987. At the point of the merger, WEFA had about 220 employees and DRI about 250. • September 18, 2008:
Global Insight announces that it will be acquired by
IHS Inc., a Colorado-based public company that supplies information on energy, the environment, security, and product life cycles. The acquisition closed on October 13, 2008 for US$165 million, consisting of $118 million in cash and IHS common stock valued at $47 million. In the announcement,
Global Insight's 2008 revenues were reported at an estimated $120 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin in the high single-digits. The deal anticipated the benefits of adding Global Insight to IHS' insight units, including
Cambridge Energy Research Associates,
Jane's Information Group, and IHS Herold's. At this point,
Global Insight is renamed to IHS Global Insight and reportedly has 700 employees in 25 global offices. == References ==