Taylor Wessing has advised PA Group on the sale of its full-service weather business, MeteoGroup, to General Atlantic. MeteoGroup is Europe's largest independent weather service, providing high quality weather intelligence to businesses from the shipping industry and energy traders, through to construction companies and the media. MeteoGroup is also the developer of WeatherPro, Europe's leading paid-for weather app.
PA Group owns the Press Association, the UK and Ireland's national news agency that was founded in 1868 and now provides complete multimedia products across web, mobile, broadcast and print.
The overall deal was led by Martin Winter and Caitlin Dupuy, with separate components headed by corporate partners James Goold, Edward Waldron and Howard Palmer. Additional members of the London based team were Martin Yells and Gabriel Estevez (banking), Chris Jeffery, Louise Taylor and Jessica Wild (IP and management services); Rosalind Connor (pensions); Peter Jackson and Neil McKnight (tax) and Robert Vidal and Louisa Penny (competition). Gilles Amsallem (Paris) and Marco Hartmann-Ruppel (Hamburg) led on French and German aspects.