Rainmaker acquired by Institutional Shareholder Services

Chris Page, founder and managing director of Rainmaker Information - the publisher of Industry Moves, Money magazine, and Financial Standard - has confirmed plans to sell the organisation to US-based Institutional Shareholder Services.

Rainmaker, which also operates the SaaS research platform RainmakerLive, publishes the Good Guide series, and hosts events like Advisers Big Day Out, will see few changes in the short term. The existing leadership team will remain in their roles and continue their focus on client engagement and the expansion of its product suite.

"The Rainmaker team is thrilled to join [Institutional Shareholder Services Market Intelligence]," said Page. "And continue our efforts to deliver market-leading solutions to our clients that empower them to grow their business.

"ISS' global platform and established data capabilities provide significant opportunities to scale our solutions further - both domestically and across the region - as well as to accelerate the delivery of new research, analytics and insight capabilities to our clients."

Page founded Rainmaker in Sydney in 1992 and sold the operation in the late 1990s to Thompson Reuters, buying it back in 2001. He previously held senior management roles with several investment managers.

Page will report to head of ISS MI's Ben Doob. "We remain committed to helping our clients as they increasingly consider global opportunities and seek partners who can provide valuable solutions across multiple major capital markets," said Doob. "Rainmaker's leadership in the Australian market - with a broad and diversified client base and well-integrated platform of data, research, analytics, and media specific to this market - will be a great addition to our suite of offerings and provide material value to our clients."

The acquisition is expected to be completed later this year, pending regulatory approvals.