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JD Power Sold to Global Investment Firm XIO Group

JKRAdvertising / Uncategorized /

April 22, 2016

Power From the newswire comes this tidbit of information that will be of interest to automotive personnel: JD Power, the global marketing company providing many industries (including automotive) with independent third-party research, has been sold. For more than a decade, JD Power has been a subsidiary of McGraw Hill Financial, but once the transaction becomes final they’ll be part of the XIO Group.

Best known for its consumer surveys in more than a dozen genres, JD Power has come to be known as the nation’s foremost independent research company. New owner XIO Group is a global alternative investment firm with operations in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Hong Kong and mainland China. Its strategy is identifying and investing in market-leading businesses located across North America and Europe; and helping them capitalize on untapped opportunities in fast-growing markets, particularly in Asia.

McGraw Hill says they’re selling because “we have increased our focus on capital and commodity markets and believe that J.D. Power could be more valuable to a company in the market research and consumer analytics space … we will now be even more focused on financial intelligence businesses with a common set of attributes.”

JD Power History

JD Power was started in 1968 by James David “Dave” Power, who had worked with several automotive companies and discovered there were no independent third-party research companies working on the consumer’s behalf. McGraw Hill originally purchased the company from Mr. Power in April 2005.

JD Power currently employs about 7,000 analysts, statisticians, consultants and other experts in a dozen offices worldwide.

Based on everything we have read, it appears it will be business as usual for JD Power … they’ll just expand, taking their business model to new parts of the world. So they’ll presumably continue to be the preeminent market research company for all things automotive.

The deal is expected to be made official in the third quarter of this year.

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