| Type: | Analytics, Consulting firm |
| Hq Location: | John Carpenter House, John Carpenter Street, London, EC4Y 0AN, UK |
GlobalData Plc is a data analytics and consulting company, headquartered in London, England. The company was established in 1999, and, under different names, has been listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) since 2000. It was previously called Progressive Digital Media and, before that, the TMN Group. GlobalData employs over 3,000 personnel in offices across the UK, US, Argentina, South Korea, Mexico, China, Japan, India and Australia. It has an R&D centre in India. The group is chaired by Murray Legg, a former partner at PwC. Mike Danson, one of the founders of Datamonitor, is CEO.[1]
TMN Group, founded in 1999 as TheMutual.net, was a London-based provider of online marketing, business information, research and marketing services.[2] In December 2007, it acquired Internet Business Group in a £9.8m deal.[3] Four months later, in March 2008, TMN rejected a £40m cash and shares offer from Tangent Communications, another marketing services group. Then in May 2008, two TMN directors, CEO Mark Smith and CFO Craig Dixon, put together a £52.8m management buy-out offer for the business, backed by August Equity.[4] Following the Tangent offer, withdrawn in April 2008, founder and former Datamonitor CEO, Mike Danson had built a 27% shareholding in TMN.[4] The MBO failed after August Equity could not secure the funding needed.
Progressive Digital Media was founded in 2007 as a holding company for a set of media assets purchased from Wilmington plc; it expanded further by a series of acquisitions, purchasing Business Review from Datamonitor PLC in July 2008,[5] followed in November 2008 by acquiring the entire share capital of SPG Media Group PLC.[6]
In 2009, TMN was acquired via a reverse takeover by Progressive Digital Media Ltd,[7] and changed its name to Progressive Digital Media Group Ltd.
Progressive Digital Media acquired Current Analysis Inc in 2014.
On 27 July 2015, Progressive Digital Media announced that it had agreed to acquire Datamonitor Financial, Datamonitor Consumer, MarketLine and Verdict businesses from Informa for a combined cash price of £25m.[8]
In January 2016, Progressive Digital Media bought the GlobalData Holding Ltd business and changed its own name to GlobalData Plc.[9]
GlobalData acquired entertainment publisher Media Business Insight in June 2022.[10] In the year to 31 December 2022, GlobalData had revenues of £243.2m and reported a statutory profit before tax of £38.4m, an 18% increase on the previous year.[11]