Dear Clients & Friends,
Below is a link to our September 2011 Market Update. As you will see, it provides our sense of M&A values, activity and trends for the dozen plus technology, information and healthcare sectors that we follow.
Click here for our Market Update
There were several sizable transactions in August, including:
- Hewlett Packard agreed to acquire UK information management software provider Autonomy for £6.2Bn;
- Datatel, Inc, a company that provides technology products to universities and SunGard Higher Education signed definitive agreements to combine their businesses and operate as one separate company in a $1.8Bn transaction sponsored by Hellman and Friedman;
- General Dynamics agreed to acquire Vangent,a leading provider of healthcare information-technology and business systems to federal agencies, in a cash transaction valued at approximately $960 million.
- IBM acquired the UK-based analytics provider i2 Limited for a rumored $500M;
- GTCR, the Chicago-based private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in Las Vegas based BankServ for $150M;
- Great Hill Partners of Boston acquired Israel-based Plimus for $115;
- Computershare (based in Australia) agreed to acquire two companies:
- Specialized Loan Servicing (based in Colorado) for $114M plus potential additional consideration based on performance over three years, and;
- Australia-based Serviceworks Group for AUD$54M, plus potential additional consideration based on performance over three years.
As you will note, a number of these deals involve large information technology firms reaching across borders to acquire capabilities.
We’ve been part of this trend too. In August,
– We announced that we advised NYSE Euronext Group on its acquisition of Tokyo-based, Metabit, which provides high-performance market access products throughout Japan and Asia, and later in August,
– We advised London-based Atrium Network, a leading provider of high availability, cost effective, low latency network solutions in Europe and North America, on its sale to Canada’s TMX Group.
We hope you will find this month’s newsletter useful. As you will see, in spite of the recent market correction, for most of the sectors that we track, valuations remain well above their lows of 2008/2009 and above last year.