Interesting to see the Guardian splashing the cash for e-gov specialists Kable (aka kablenet.com, Government Computing, etc). Guardian boss Tim Brooks says it’s an ‘attractive market with good prospects for growth’. See coverage from acquiree and acquirer. If GNM wants to acquire any blogs in a similar territory, I’m open to offers. ๐
Responses
Interesting – what is it that Kable actually do? It’s hard to tell from their site…
An excellent question, Dave.
Kable are a well-established media organisation that acts as a middleman bringing suppliers of IT and related services together with public sector organisations through events, publications and market research. They have a credible reputation in a niche market and own (amongst others) the brandnames of Government Computing (publications and events), KableDirect (market research) and GCexpo (event hosted at Earls Court on an annual basis).
Bored yet….Kable have a fairly solid portfolio but are not the most exciting of propositions for a top tier media group.
So the burning question of the day – why would GMN be interested in and pay cash for Kable? In my opinion, in the battle of hearts and minds for the public sector market there are (arguably) two major media players; The Guardian Group and EMAP. The Guardian are (allegedly) currently making moves to aquire the EMAP Portfolio in this area to guarantee their market postion as the major information provider to the public sector. By aquiring Kable, one of the leading companies in a public sector niche, GMN have simply limited EMAP’s options by ensuring that it cannot increase it’s market share in the public sector by buying compatible brands to support it’s current market offering.
I predict that in the bigger picture, the Kable story is not significant, the battle between EMAP and GMN for position of top dog as the public sector information provider will be far more interesting…..