Francisco Partners is acquiring most of The Weather Company assets from IBM, including The Weather Channel and related digital properties such as Weather.com, Weather Underground and Storm Radar.
In addition to these popular consumer-facing offerings, the deal covers The Weather Company enterprise products serving more than 2,000 business in industries including broadcast, aviation and advertising, as well as the science and technology platform powering the actual weather forecasts for which the company is known.
The Weather Company boasts an average monthly audience of over 415 million individuals and was recently recognized as one of the top 10 most trusted brands in the U.S. by Morning Consult. The value of the deal was not disclosed, but news reports pegged the price tag of IBM’s 2016 acquisition of The Weather Company at $2 billion. IBM has been operating The Weather Company as a subsidiary of its Watson & Cloud Platform business unit.
“We regularly review our portfolio to make sure our business areas are core to that strategy, and today’s news reflects our continued focus on these two transformational technologies,” said Rob Thomas, IBM’s chief commercial officer and senior vice president, software. IBM will continue to use The Weather Company’s weather data for its Environmental Intelligence Suite, which helps clients manage ESG data. Climate-related use cases in the planning include integrating a geospatial AI model based on NASA’s satellite dataset into IBM’s AI and data platform, watsonx, for crop yield prediction and disaster tracking, among other applications.
For its part, Francisco Partners plans to invest in The Weather Company to develop new tools and “experiences” that can help users assess how weather impacts all aspects of their lives, with an initial focus on health and well-being. The firm also plans to enhance The Weather Company’s enterprise offerings and its advertising platform.
“Amid the growing volatility of weather, The Weather Company’s unique set of consumer, media, and industry-specific products provide mission critical, data-driven weather insights to individuals and businesses around the world,” said Alan Ni, a partner at the firm. “We are excited to partner with the management team to grow The Weather Company’s robust portfolio of technology offerings.”
Francisco Partners has invested in over 400 tech companies since its launch in Menlo Park, Calif., during the original dot.com boom in 1999. The firm, now based in San Francisco with offices in New York and London, had $4.9 billion in AUM as of June 27. In addition to backing or acquiring well-known tech platforms including LegalZoom and New Relic, Francisco Partners has a successful track record in executing corporate carveouts, including Dell’s Dell Software business and Discovery’s Discovery Education business.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, pending customary closing conditions as well as regulatory approvals and completion of local labor processes. Once it goes through, it will mark The Weather Company’s return to private equity ownership; a consortium including Blackstone and Bain Capital owned the company until 2016 and controlled The Weather Channel cable network until 2018.
