ORC chief Marc Litvinoff and colleagues plan to “invest in high-growth opportunities that will further enhance our existing research offerings to clients and expand our global footprint”.

Litvinoff has been with the company since 2007, when the research agency Guideline was acquired by Infogroup and folded into ORC. The original Opinion Research Corporation – as it was then known – was bought by Infogroup in 2006.

The ORC buy-out comes exactly a year after Infogroup was acquired by private equity firm CCMP Capital Partners. New CEO Clare Hart has set about focusing the company on the “integrated multichannel sales and marketing needs of our clients”.

The sale of the research business, she says, “is a continuation of this effort and allows us to concentrate our resources on our core businesses which include high-value business and consumer data, customer list management and list brokerage services”.