VisasQ, a Tokyo company that connects business clients with industry experts for paid interviews, agreed to buy Coleman Research Group, a New York rival founded in 2003. The price was about $102 million, about ¥11.2 billion. Coleman had more than 260,000 registered advisers, about 180,000 of them in the US, and offices in the US, Europe and Hong Kong. The numbers Coleman had sales of about ¥4.67 billion and an operating profit of about ¥124 million, so VisasQ paid roughly 2.4 times its yearly sales. It had more than 200 staff in New York, Raleigh, Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong, and over 300 clients, including large investors and consulting firms. VisasQ had about 140,000 registered advisers, mostly in Japan, so the two together had more than 400,000. How VisasQ paid IXGS Investment IV, a fund advised by Advantage Advisors, bought ¥7.5 billion of new preferred shares, and Mizuho Bank lent ¥4 billion. Founder and CEO Kevin Coleman and other sellers took about ¥1.4 billion of their payment in VisasQ shares instead of cash. The new shares could dilute existing holders by about a third, so the plan went to a shareholder vote in October 2021, together with a board seat for Coleman. With about $6 million of deal costs, the total came to about $107 million (about ¥11.8 billion). Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley advised VisasQ on the price. The write-off In April 2024, VisasQ said Coleman's results had kept falling short of its plan after business conditions changed. It wrote off the full ¥14.5 billion of goodwill and other intangible assets booked for the deal in the year to February 2024. The loss broke a condition on its bank loans, but the lender agreed in writing not to demand early repayment.
