Perform partners with ACBJ to create new company

Perform Group, the sports content distributor, and American City Business Journals (ACBJ), a division of Advance Publications, have established a new company, Perform Sporting News.

Based in New York, with sales and editorial teams in Charlotte, Chicago and Los Angeles, Perform Sporting News is expected to materially enhance Perform's direct to consumer scale and presence in the US and Canada.

Perform Sporting News brings together Perform's US and Canadian consumer and advertising businesses, Goal - a large football website - and the digital assets of ACBJ's consumer web division Sporting News.

The group said that the combined business will have a reach of over 33m average monthly unique users, and a team of 100 journalists, sales and technical staff providing sports fans and business partners with news, editorial comment, video and statistics across eight sports including the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and College Sports.

The venture is expected to be revenue enhancing and earnings neutral for Perform in 2013 and revenue and earnings enhancing thereafter.

The venture will be owned 65% by Perform and 35% by ACBJ. On completion, Perform will provide loans and cash equity of $1.4m and ACBJ loans and cash equity of $4.2m to the Venture to cover its working capital needs.

Commenting on the venture, Oliver Slipper, Joint Chief Executive Officer of Perform, said: "We are excited to announce this partnership between Perform and ACBJ, which brings together the leading provider of online sports video and one of the US's flagship sports media brands."

He added:"Together, we will bring the best news, editorial, video and data content of professional and College Sports to millions of sports fans in the US and Canada and provide advertisers with a complete digital sports offering across the web and mobile and across both video and display."

MF