OFT to review Experian's Garlik buy
Experian's acquisition of web monitoring business Garlik is to be reviewed by the Office for Fair Trading. The private equity firm of the late Nottingham Forest owner Nigel Doughty, who died at the weekend, sold its stake in Garlik as part of the deal.
The Nottingham-based information services company acquired Garlik in December with the aim of extending its presence in the identity protection field.
The watchdog revealed last week that is reviewing the deal and has issued an invitation to comment.
Founded in 2005, Garlik helps consumers to protect themselves from the risks of identity theft and financial fraud. Through its main product, DataPatrol, Garlik captures and monitors information from a variety of sources across the wider web and social networking sites using its proprietary web-crawler technology.
Experian said the acquisition was consistent with its goal of becoming the most trusted consumer brand for credit monitoring and identity protection services. The acquisition will form part of Experian's Interactive business.
At 31 December 2010 Garlik had gross assets of $1m (£632,000). Garlik was acquired from venture capital investors DFJ Esprit and Doughty Hanson, and the founding shareholders. The acquisition has been funded from Experian's existing cash resources.
