Purchase of competitor expands The Weather Channel's domination of the weather market
Weather Services International (WSI) has reached an agreement to acquire Weather Central, a Madison, Wis. based global provider of interactive weather technology, graphics and data services for professional, media, and consumers delivered to television, web and mobile screens. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“The acquisition of Weather Central enables us to immediately expand the range of products we offer to each company’s business clients in television, wind energy, insurance and retail, as well as increase the speed at which we can develop new innovations,” said Mark Gildersleeve, president of WSI. “Our goal is to make the best products available to our collective customer base. Every broadcast customer, for example, will gain access to new tropical data, radar data, forecast models, and severe weather tracking tools within the first thirty days at no charge. In addition, we are offering a wider suite of products in the interactivity, social, news, traffic, web, mobile and video categories.”
Weather Central brings additional strength in core weather capabilities with its data cloud and neural network initiatives. Weather Central’s common user profile capabilities and application expertise will improve the end user experience for both company’s professional clients. Among the company’s first joint projects will be the application of weather analytics to improve advertising effectiveness in the retail sector.
“This acquisition will accelerate the delivery of professional weather solutions to business customers around the globe” said Patrick Vogt, CEO of Weather Central. “We believe there is tremendous potential to grow our weather services business outside North America and to be a more effective competitor generally. By fully harnessing the resources of both organizations, we will make even more advancements in weather data and technology that our clients can apply directly to the bottom line.”
Patrick Vogt will step into a new role supporting the integration and key customer initiatives, with all of his efforts focusing on ensuring a smooth transition. Blackstone Advisory Partners L.P. served as WSI’s financial advisor in the transaction and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP acted as legal advisor.
WSI is affiliated with The Weather Channel, which is owned by NBC Universal, The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital.
Information for this story was provided by Weather Central.
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