Informa, which owns Datamonitor, Ovum and Butler, stays on the shelf after Providence Equity Partners walked away from its planned purchase of the group. It would have been one of the largest private equity deals, and was never certain. As we discussed, the lack of synergies across the sprawling Informa group continue to make it ripe for M&A.

Former Ovum director Richard Holway, whose new venture launches on Monday, draws a glum balance sheet of the affair in his final article for Hotviews:

A healthy M&A Market, just like a healthy IPO market, is pretty vital in creating a healthy overal tech market. More reason for the gloom, I’m afraid.

However, without the pressure of an impending sale, Informa’s management will be able to press ahead with better co-operations within the Informa group. That’s something I discussed with Ovum’s management yesterday, and will write about next week.

PS. This article dates from Sep 19, 2008.  On Dec 3, 2012, it was mistakenly published by Outsell as if it was then current news. It’s not.