Global real estate investment company Kennedy Wilson (NYSE: KW) today announced the sale of its research subsidiary, Meyers Research, LLC (“Meyers”) to MidOcean Partners, a private equity firm, which simultaneously acquired Hanley Wood, LLC, parent company of BUILDER, from Oaktree Capital Management.
Meyers is a leading provider of data for residential real estate development and new home construction through its mobile-first platform, Zonda, and a leading advisor to the real estate development industry.
Hanley Wood is a diversified marketing, research and media services company focused on the residential construction, design and real estate industries. Hanley Wood Media brands enable continuous digital engagement, both digital and print, and executive-level face-to-face events. Hanley Wood's Metrostudy is the industry’s largest residential data provider, providing proprietary sets of pricing and product, sales and traffic reports blended with public demographics, economic and permit data representing 900 localities and 96% of U.S. markets, including over 40,000 active and future subdivisions, to six major industry segments — builders and developers, building product manufacturers, financial institutions, school districts, utilities and commercial retail. Hanley Wood Marketing solutions transforms business intelligence into engaging content that drives sales across digital, in-person, social and print programs for more than 75 companies.
Kennedy Wilson re-invested $15 million, a portion of its profits, into a minority investment in the newly combined company.
“The data and insights provided by the Meyers Research team have been a tremendous asset to Kennedy Wilson as we’ve grown into new markets over the past six years. We believe Jeff Meyers and his talented team will have continued growth opportunities under MidOcean’s stewardship and we look forward to continuing our partnership,” said Matt Windisch, executive vice president of Kennedy Wilson, who is a member of the Board of Directors for the new company. “This sale is part of Kennedy Wilson’s broader strategy to focus on our core business, with an emphasis on increasing our cash flow through the completion and lease-up of our development projects as well as growing our investment management platform globally.”
When Meyers and Kennedy Wilson joined forces in 2012, Meyers had 12 employees in one office with annual revenues of less than $2 million. Since then, Meyers has grown to nearly 150 employees in 10 offices with annual revenues of approximately $16 million.
During Kennedy Wilson’s ownership, Meyers Research launched Zonda, its flagship platform that provides housing market insights backed by real-time data. Zonda delivers historic trends and forecasts, quick insights, visual data storytelling tools, curated housing analysis and exportable data used by sales and marketing professionals, land acquisition executives, developers and institutional investors to make well-informed decisions about housing market needs and goals.
