AlacraBlog

Content Provider Profile: Canadean

Canadean, the powerful consumer market database, is a new Alacra partner. Mr. Tim Royston-Webb, Canadean's Managing Director, recently spent some time telling us about Canadean, the heavy demand for their content and how they helped IKEA understand their gap in the kitchen market.

Tell us about Canadean.

Canadean has long held a reputation with FMCG companies for providing specialist business information by conducting detailed industry and consumer research, supported by insightful value-added analysis. We provide business intelligence covering the entire consumer value chain in the 9 following sectors: Ingredients, Packaging, Beer, Soft Drinks, Wines & Spirits, Health & Beauty, Food, Retail and Foodservice. Our contacts, coupled with our industry leading methodology enables us to provide the most accurate research in the market place.

What are some typical uses for Canadean content?

Our premium reports are often purchased by decision makers at Global Fortune 500 companies in order to improve their marketing, procurement and growth strategies. Typical customers include:

• C level and D Level Management
• Marketing Directors, CEO, Board – (Consumer trends reports in particular)
• Brand managers, Marketing managers, Export Directors, Analysts
  

What makes your content unique?

• Canadean’s unique selling point is our huge survey capability.  With 120,000 consumers surveyed it gives us a real in-depth view on consumer drivers and allows us to quantify trends – no other research house has successfully achieved this before.
• Canadean has been providing strategic analysis to the leading players for nearly 40 years.  Our intelligence has helped shape the market and our reliability has allowed special relationships to form with the likes of coca-cola and PepsiCo who regularly rely on our market sizing data year after year.
• Canadean is an integral part of the industry we work in and have the most comprehensive network of contacts. Our contacts, coupled with our industry leading methodology enables us to provide the most accurate research in the market place.

What do customers like best about Canadean?

• Canadean publications quantify trends as well as supply and demand. 
• We have built up a reputation of trust and knowledgeable insight.
• All our Analysts are specialists in their fields and have years of experience working with international business.
• We have a vast product offering with research from as little as $75 - $10,000+

What business trends are you spotting among your customers?

Unsurprisingly, we’re seeing heavy demand for research on the consumer markets in the BRIC countries as these economies continue to grow at much higher rates than the traditional OECD countries. Competition in BRIC is extremely fierce meaning retailers in particular have to use research as a tool for leverage when entering new markets.

How has the recent economic crisis impacted your market?

The economic crisis has had a minimal effect on sales of Canadean research. Canadean’s focus on food and beverages means it has been well shielded from the global economic downturn, as this industry has not seen a fall in consumption levels – everybody needs to eat after all! 

The current economic environment can be rough for publishers but also provides opportunities. How is the economy impacting your market today?

The consumer market is a very affluent market and is resilient in the face economic difficulty as people will always need to consume.  Therefore manufacturers, suppliers, producers and channels need to understand peoples’ consumption habits and trends behind this, making market research a fundamental requirement for their business needs.

 What sorts of interesting or unexpected uses of your content have you seen?

Canadean helped IKEA to create their latest advertising campaign by understanding where their gap in the kitchens market was, why it was there and how to address it. The results Canadean provided to IKEA led to this shift in positioning and finally a growth of 0.8% in the kitchens market in the UK, the fastest growing against all their peers.

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To see recent research from Canadean, visit the Canadean Company Reports on AlacraStore.com. 

If you are interested in contributing your content to The Alacra Store(www.alacrastore.com), please contact Steve Davison at steven[dot]davison[at]alacra[dot]com.

 

Moody’s Fourth Annual Tuition Survey

The Alacra Store is an extreme long-tail ecommerce business.  There are close to 100 million business information SKUs – research reports, earnings call transcripts, credit reports, news stories – from about 50 publishers available on the Store.  Only rarely does a single report sell more than a dozen times; when it does it’s usually a credit research report or an earnings call transcript being purchased by attorneys for a securities litigation case.  So when an expensive piece of content sells several times in the course of a couple of days, we take a look to see what it is.

This week Moody’s released a report titled More US Colleges Face Stagnating Enrollment and Tuition Revenue, which has been purchased several times on the Alacra Store.  At $550, it’s not inexpensive.  This is the abstract:

The cumulative effects of years of depressed family income and net worth, as well as uncertain job prospects for many recent graduates, are combining to soften student market demand at current tuition prices. In addition to these economic challenges, tougher governmental scrutiny of higher education costs and disclosure practices is adding regulatory and political pressure that hinders tuition and revenue from rising at past rates. Federal budget negotiations may result in further pressure on colleges if student aid and loan programs are curtailed to any degree, as a rising share of students are dependent on these funding sources.

I can’t give too much of the report away but here are three highlights:

1)  Enrollment declined in 2012 at nearly half the responding universities.

2)  For FY 2013, many universities are projecting either net tuition revenue declines or revenue increases that will not keep up with inflation.

3)  Online course enrollment is beginning to alter the business model of US higher education.

Although the report is written for bondholders, it’s a great look into what’s affecting higher education.

10 Forecasts for 2013 M&A Activity

Robust M&A activity can help a lot of businesses in New York and Alacra is one of them.  So, at the beginning of every year I make a habit of reading a bunch of projections for the coming year.  The past few years have been slow; the forecast for 2013 is mixed.  One would think there would be more optimism with rates low and corporations having plenty of cash available.  But that’s been the atmosphere since 2009 and the market has been listless.  Let’s hope for a better 2013.

1)  PwC Says Fundamentals are Strong for U.S. Mergers & Acquisitions Activity in 2013

“The fundamentals for sustained M&A activity in 2013 are solid, with improving corporate confidence, increasing private equity activity from both a buy and sell side perspective, and relatively healthy debt markets.  There remains strong competition for quality assets as both corporates and private equity continue to seek out deals to fuel their growth and deploy capital,” said Martyn Curragh, PwC's U.S. Deals Leader.

2)  mergermarket Market Spotlight: 2013 M&A Outlook (PDF)

Many mergers and acquisitions (M&A) practitioners searching for deals in the past year were often left waiting for market conditions to improve.  Through the first three quarters, 2012 set pace to drop 18% in global deal value and 9% in volume compared to the previous year, according to mergermarket research.  According to the respondents of our December survey on 2013 M&A outlook, these numbers should rebound behind the strength of strategic buyers, the emerging markets, and the energy sector.

3) RBS Citizens Middle Market M&A Outlook 2013 (PDF)

As you will see form the report itself, a unique set of factors has coalesced to form a “perfect storm” of M&A activity; a slow yet improving economy, historically low interest rates, and a strong appetite among many businesses for growth through acquisitions.  Along with this heightened activity comes both opportunities and challenges, more competition for quality acquisitions, the risk of cutting corners in due-diligence, and real choices about whether to “buy it” or build it.”

4)  PEDaily.CN: M&A Outlook 2013: Economic Recovery Spurs M&A Activity (China)

Under such stimulus of the accelerated growth of China’s economy in 2013, Chinese [domestic] M&A market is expected to make a new breakthrough and create a new record. …China’s economy is full of growth power after the short-term downturn, adding the loose monetary policy and excellent internal environment; under the circumstances of both excellent internal and external environments, Chinese enterprises will accelerate the pace of their outbound investment strategies and be expected to create a new high in outbound M&As in 2013.

5)  Media M&A in 2013: What's at stake, what's for sale and who's buying?

Get your cheque book out, the boom times are back. OK, perhaps not, but right now is one of the most fertile times to be in the media mergers and acquisitions markets - with some very big brands up for grabs in 2013. Plus, M&A activity is back to pre-recession levels in the media and entertainment space - a broad category that encompasses TheMediaBriefing's core audience of professional media brands, according to media investment bank Jordan Edmiston Group Inc's annual rundown of M&A.

6)  Tech buyers pull in their M&A plans for 2013

Even as 2012 is shaping up to be a lackluster year for tech M&A, next year could be even quieter. In 451 Research’s annual survey of corporate development executives, these buyers dramatically pulled in their acquisition plans for 2013. Just 38% of corporate shoppers said they would be increasing their M&A activity in the coming year – the lowest forecasted activity level in the six years of our survey.

7)  Muted 2012 dampens M&A revival hopes in US

Conditions looked ripe for strong growth in US mergers and acquisitions volumes 12 months ago: the economy was growing, credit markets were open and private equity firms and companies had cash to spend. But a dealmaking boom failed to materialise, however, and few now expect 2013 to be much better.

8)  Video: Mergers & Acquisitions Will Explode in 2013

An explosion of mergers and acquisitions is predicted in 2013 by Robert Profusek, Chairman of the global M&A practice at Jones Day.  It’s a pessimistic time and actually that is a cause for optimism in the merger market.  The basic conditions for M&A have been really fabulous for the last 18 months.  But the market’s just been OK.  It hasn’t been terrible, but it’s hasn’t been good.  And I think it has been held back by all of the negativism that last year was primarily focused on the EU and this year it has been the attending to the fiscal cliff, the election and everything else.  But the conditions are there.  We need more M&A in this country. 

9)  More Mergers on the Horizon?

Even as the volume of regulatory-assisted acquisition deals declines, acquiring banks will soon enjoy new opportunities to expand by acquiring healthy banks.

10)  M&A activity expected to see sharp jump in 2013: E&Y (India)

Mumbai: Although global uncertainties and domestic factors impacted mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India in 2012, they are expected to see a sharp jump in 2013, to be driven mainly by cross-border activity, global consultancy firm Ernst & Young has said. "Deal activity declined by 8.1 percent as global uncertainties and domestic factors left an impact on Indian M&A in 2012. However, the momentum temporarily picked up in 3Q12 and expected to continue in 2013," Ernst & Young said in its report on M&A here.