China Oceanwide Holdings Group and China-based IDG Capital have agreed to acquire tech journalism pioneer International Data Group, publisher of Computerworld, PCWorld and hundreds of other tech publications worldwide.
Tech analyst firm IDC and venture capital firm IDG Ventures are included in the deal, announced Thursday. The size of the deal was not officially released, although a Wall Street Journal story put the price at less than $1 billion.
IDG, a privately held company, operates in 97 countries. It was founded in 1964 by Patrick McGovern, who died in March 2014. Since then, the company has been run by a board of directors, which has been seeking a buyer for about a year.
IDG brands also include CIO, Macworld, InfoWorld, CSO, Network World and IDG.tv. IDG is also the parent company of the IDG News Service.
China Oceanwide is a privately held international conglomerate founded by Chairman Zhiqiang Lu in 1985. The company operates businesses in the financial services, real estate assets, media, technology, and strategic investment markets, and it has more than 12,000 employees globally.
The company purchased a stake in Lenovo’s parent company, Legend Holdings, in 2009. It has continued to expand globally and in October last year, it agreed to buy U.
