Response Global Media (RGM), the publisher of Responsible Investor and Responsible Company and organiser of global ESG events, has been bought by information and networking-events provider PEI.
Launched in 2007 by Tony Hay and Hugh Wheelan, RGM has been a strong voice in the world of ESG and sustainable finance, viewing developments through the prism of material, strategic and increasingly regulatory importance for investors and their investee companies.
PEI was established in 2001 to engage specialist communities in the world’s private asset markets and related fields and has 13 publications: PERE, Real Estate Capital, Infrastructure Investor, Private Debt Investor, Private Funds CFO, Regulatory Compliance Watch, Secondariesinvestor.com, Agriinvestor.com, Private Equity International, Buyouts, PE HUB, Venture Capital Journal and New Private Markets. It runs more than 40 annual conferences around the world.
PEI, which is majority-owned by private-equity house Bridgepoint, has been building its presence in the sustainable finance field over a number of years. It has been running the PEI Responsible Investment Forum in New York and London for over five years in partnership with the Principles for Responsible Investment.
In March this year it launched its New Private Markets publication, writing about the burgeoning ESG and Impact Investing growth in private markets.
All RGM employees will be retained as part of the deal. Further terms were not disclosed.
“We are very excited to be joining PEI at this ‘big bang’ moment as ESG/responsible investment and strategic corporate sustainability go mainstream,” said Wheelan and Hay. “The combination of PEI’s highly-regarded private markets specialism and RGM’s public markets and company expertise is extremely potent, and we both share a vision of driving high quality journalism, events and information in ESG and impact for companies and their investors across a broad range of asset classes.”
Tim McLoughlin, CEO at PEI, said: “Hugh Wheelan, Tony Hay and the RGM team have built a remarkable reputation and a uniquely prescient enterprise in their founding of RGM. We’re extremely pleased they’ve chosen PEI as the right home for their business in the next chapter of growth. In RGM we see huge potential to build on the growth of strongly established, high-quality subscription brands and to increase our presence in a key growth area of the market. Responsible Investor, Responsible Company and RI Research have excellent overlap with our existing activities so there is lots of positive synergy with PEI’s existing ESG-focused activities, including our sustainability-focused New Private Markets title”.
PEI has operations in New York City, London, Hong Kong, Washington, Tokyo and Sydney. It employs 300+ staff globally.