Media & Entertainment Acquisitions in Wisconsin

Meliora Group, a woman-owned Virginia-based publishing company, has acquired Cheese Reporter, a weekly trade newspaper serving the global dairy industry since 1876. The publication’s long-time owner Dick Groves sold the business but will remain as editor while Meliora plans to advance the title into the digital age and expand its trade-publishing portfolio.

Francisco Partners has provided growth capital to back the combination of Muse Group and Hal Leonard, creating an expanded global music content and learning platform. Hal Leonard will join Muse Group while both firms retain their existing headquarters; the combined business will leverage Muse Group’s digital products (Ultimate Guitar, MuseScore, Audacity) and Hal Leonard’s extensive sheet-music catalog to accelerate product, content and education offerings.

Catalyst Communications Network (CCN) has acquired the assets of Heartland Communications Group (HCG), a publisher of classified listings and buyer directories serving the agriculture, construction and industrial markets. CCN will absorb the HCG team and continue operating under the Heartland name while bringing digital marketing and growth operations expertise to expand the business.

Woodward Communications, Inc. has acquired Insight Publications, LLC (Appleton, WI) from owner Brian Rasmussen and purchased In Business (IBmadison) from Magna Publications, Inc. Both publications’ employees will remain with their businesses and management said the deals expand WCI’s regional publishing, digital and events capabilities across Wisconsin.

Verbit has acquired U.S. Captioning Company, a leading U.S. provider of closed captioning and real-time captioning services for national TV networks, producers and programmers, to expand its media vertical. The deal adds U.S. Captioning’s multi-language post-production and real-time captioning capabilities and its nationwide workforce of captioners to Verbit’s transcription and captioning platform, strengthening Verbit’s reach in media and broadcast accessibility.

Gambling.com Group Limited agreed to acquire Roto Sports, Inc., operator of RotoWire, to accelerate the Group’s U.S. expansion and grow its sports betting-related affiliate revenue. The all‑transaction purchase price is $27.5 million (including $7.5 million deferred), with $20.0 million payable at closing and the remainder paid over the subsequent two years.

TRS Capital, an early-stage investment firm based in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, has made a significant seed investment in RadPoker, a mobile-optimized no-limit Texas Hold'em app led by CEO Nishon Rad. The funding and TRS’s consulting support are intended to accelerate RadPoker’s monetization timeline and support rapid user growth for the app, which averages roughly 4-minute heads-up games and features leaderboards and a custom rating algorithm.

VNN, a leading high school sports communications platform, has acquired Wisconsin Sports Network (WSN), the publisher of wissports.net. The deal combines VNN's SportsHub platform with WSN's state-focused coverage to create vertically integrated, high-profile and hyper-local high school sports content across Wisconsin.

Boyne Capital has partnered with management to acquire AC Business Media, a Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin–based business-to-business media and business intelligence company, purchasing a majority stake from prior owners Anil Narang and Carl Wistreich (who remain minority owners). Boyne will work with new CEO Barry Lovette and the existing management team to invest in products and capabilities and expand AC Business Media's audience across its portfolio of digital properties, trade shows, magazines, webinars and data-driven marketing offerings.

Reader's Digest Association agreed to acquire Reiman Publications LLC from Reiman senior management and Madison Dearborn Partners for $760 million in cash. The acquisition adds Reiman's 12 bimonthly lifestyle and cooking magazines, a 16–32 million subscriber/database asset and about $300 million in annual revenue, which Reader's Digest said will expand its marketing channels and reinvigorate its core publishing and books/home-entertainment businesses.