Media veterans form investor-backed takeover firm

LONDON (Reuters) - Publishing industry veterans David Smith and Anthony Foye have formed a company backed by institutional investors with the aim of acquiring business media companies worth up to 1 billion pounds.

The newly incorporated Critical Information Group (CIG.L) listed on London's junior AIM exchange on Thursday and said it had already identified potential businesses that could meet its investment strategy.

Media sector mergers have been rare over the past year as funding has dried up. Professional publisher Reed Elsevier (REL.L) scrapped the sale of its trade-magazines division in December, saying it could not agree acceptable terms.

Smith has 37 years of publishing experience and is a former chief executive of Taylor & Francis who led the company's 2004 all-share merger with Informa (INF.L) that created T&F Informa, with a market capitalisation of 1.1 billion pounds at the time.

Foye has more than 20 years of publishing experience and was finance director at Informa until 2007. He also advised market-research firm YouGov (YOU.L) on its 2005 IPO.

Smith is CIG's executive chairman and Foye is chief operating officer and CFO. They said they would focus on B2B media businesses in Britain and overseas, with a focus on publishing and events.

CIG raised 1.56 million pounds from nine British institutional investors in Thursday's initial public offering, with a further 1.45 million invested by CIG's directors.

CIG is backed by Aegon Asset management, Artemis Investment Management, Aviva Investors Global Services, Axa Framlington Investment Management, Henderson Global Investors, Jupiter Asset Management, Legal & General Investment Management, Old Mutual Asset Management and Threadneedle Asset Management.

Each will hold 5.3 percent of the company.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Dan Lalor)