Reed Elsevier Acquires ChoicePoint for $4.1 Billion

Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) has offered $4.1 billion ($50 per share) for risk management information provider ChoicePoint, a nearly 50% premium over yesterday's closing price.

ChoicePoint, which spun out of Equifax in 1997, has revenues of about $1 billion. The Company has focused on developing vertical market workflow applications, leveraging content plus analytics, primarily for risk management.  Reed Elsevier will merge ChoicePoint with its Lexis-Nexis division. Together with its Accurint database (acquired from Seisint in 2007), Lexis-Nexis will have a comprehensive suite of solutions for background checks, fraud detection and related tasks.

Reed also announced plans to divest its Reed Business Information trade magazine business.  Via PaidContent, on the conference call, Reed CEO Crispin Davis indicated that the Company is looking to protect itself from an expected advertising downfall as we move towards a recession.