A stable of B2B publications including the legal industry’s Lawyers’ Weekly have been acquired by private equity firm Catalyst with the guidance of Herbert Smith Freehills, KWM and Gilbert + Tobin.

The publications are part of Reed Business Information Australia, one of the largest B2B media companies in Australia. This transaction sees Catalyst acquire RBIA for a reported A$40 million.  Investec provided Catalyst with debt financing to fund the acquisition and ongoing working capital requirements.

Legal advisors on this deal were King & Wood Mallesons (advising Investec), Herbert Smith Freehills (advising RBI) and Gilbert + Tobin (advising Catalyst).

Prior to being moved into the RBIA suite of publications in 2011, Lawyers Weekly was published by LexisNexis. Both RBI and LexisNexis are owned by global publishing giant Reed Elsevier.