IBM announced that it had acquired the company from a consortium of Blackstone Group, Bain Capital, and NBCUniversal in 2016.Weather forecast platform business The Weather Company, will be transferred to private equity firm Francisco Partners.
However, IBM did not disclose the amount involved in the sale of The Weather Company, so it is impossible to confirm whether the amount is more than the $25 billion when it acquired it that year, or whether it is sold at a discount.
The Weather Company's platform business includes The Weather Channel App and Weather.com web service, serving approximately 4.15 million users each month. It has accumulated more than 2000 data partners, who mainly use its weather forecasts and storm monitoring systems, and sell data solutions for technology integration in broadcasting, media, aviation, advertising and related industries.
After being transferred to private equity firm Francisco Partners, The Weather Company will transform its operating model from providing weather forecasts and other data to integrating weather forecast content to help customers customize application services.
IBM will retain The Weather Company's sustainability software business, which includes the Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS), to help clients collect, organize, measure, and create ESG (environmental, social, and governance)-related reports, thereby helping companies make operational decisions that comply with government regulations.
In addition, Francisco Partners, the private equity firm that acquired The Weather Company's platform business, recently acquired cloud application service performance monitoring platform New Relic for US$65 billion, and is also planning to acquire media editing software company Avid Technology.
Francisco Partners partnered with asset manager TPG in July to acquire cloud-based application performance monitoring platform New Relic for $7 billion, and is currently bidding for media editing software company Avid Technology.
