Buyout Acquisitions in 2011

Schneider Electric announced the strategic acquisition of the intellectual property and software behind Viridity's EnergyCenter 2.0 platform to augment its StruxureWare for Data Center Operations DCIM suite. The deal brings Viridity's DCIM and IT asset auto-discovery capabilities into Schneider's data center software portfolio to improve energy measurement and capacity optimization.

GfK Group has acquired 100% of Knowledge Networks Inc., a US-based provider of online and digital market research solutions, including the probability-based KnowledgePanel. The acquisition strengthens GfK's digital research and media-measurement capabilities and expands its presence in the US market, giving clients access to Knowledge Networks' panels and specialist healthcare panels.

eVestment Alliance has acquired ASAP Advisor Services to combine industry-leading database population platforms and expand its technology-enabled offerings for institutional and hedge fund asset managers. The deal brings ASAP's database management and investment marketing capabilities into eVestment's suite (to be rebranded eVestment Omni) to broaden automated and outsourced data-population services for clients.

Wyse Technology of San Jose acquired Montreal-based Trellia Networks Inc., a cloud-based mobile device management (MDM) provider, making Trellia a wholly owned subsidiary. The deal expands Wyse’s management and mobile infrastructure offerings to cover smartphones and tablets, and Trellia’s R&D will remain in Canada while its products are progressively integrated into Wyse’s product line.

Trudeau Corporation agreed to acquire Silvermark, a supplier of kitchen gadgets and gourmet accessories known for the Toss & Chop Salad Chopper. The acquisition is intended to expand Trudeau's product lines and distribution channels while leveraging operational synergies; Silvermark co-founder Michael Silver will focus on new product and business development post-transaction.

Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. (Nasdaq: BECN) acquired The Roofing Connection, a single-location distributor of mostly residential roofing products based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The business will operate as part of Beacon Roofing Supply Canada, expanding Beacon’s presence into the Halifax market and furthering its coast-to-coast footprint in Canada; founders Cheryl and Pat O’Brien join the Beacon family.

OMERS Private Equity has partnered with Great Expressions' existing management to acquire GEDC Super Holdings Inc. ("Great Expressions") from affiliates of Audax Group. Great Expressions is a leading dental practice management company headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, operating 152 affiliated dental offices across seven U.S. states with roughly 1,800 clinical and support staff; OMERS said it will support continued growth, initially focusing on Florida, Georgia and Michigan.

M. Jacob & Sons (MJS), a Livonia, Michigan–based rigid packaging provider, has acquired Packaging Consultants Group (PCG) of Brewster, New York. PCG will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary with existing operations and employees retained; former owner Steve Penn will remain as president of the MJS subsidiary. The acquisition expands MJS's capabilities and regional presence in the Northeastern United States.

Cardno, the Brisbane-based professional services firm, acquired TEC Inc., a 330-person environmental and infrastructure consulting firm headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. 7 Mile Advisors acted as exclusive sell-side advisor; the deal expands Cardno's U.S. environmental capabilities, access to U.S. government clients, and provides TEC with greater international reach and growth opportunities.

Nextag, the San Mateo-based shopping and product comparison website, acquired Thingbuzz, a Bay Area real-time social shopping platform, to integrate social media product conversations and reviews into Nextag's shopping experience. The acquisition is intended to add social shopping and real-time product discovery capabilities to Nextag's site; financial terms were not disclosed.

Heartland Payment Systems’ School Solutions division acquired School-Link Technologies, a provider of K-12 school nutrition and point-of-sale (POS) solutions, to strengthen its K-12 payments and school nutrition product suite. The deal is part of a series of acquisitions (including LunchBox, Comalex and MySchoolBucks) that position Heartland as a market leader serving over 19,000 U.S. public schools.

McAfee, Inc. completed its acquisition of NitroSecurity, a Portsmouth-based provider of security information and event management (SIEM) solutions. The deal brings NitroSecurity's SIEM technology and team into McAfee's Risk and Compliance/business unit to expand McAfee's visibility, analytics and remediation capabilities across endpoint, network and application environments.

Computer Services, Inc. (CSI) completed the acquisition of Fort Collins-based HEIT, a provider of cloud-based managed compliance, security and IT services for financial institutions. CSI purchased all outstanding shares using cash and CSI stock, adding HEIT's managed services capabilities and roughly 400 financial-institution customers to its platform.

Bain Capital has agreed to acquire Australian business management and accounting software provider MYOB Ltd, buying the company from a consortium led by Archer Capital with participation from HarbourVest Partners. Reports value the deal at about A$1.2 billion; MYOB management will remain shareholders as Bain looks to accelerate the company's shift to cloud-based capabilities and drive further growth in the Australasian SME market.

Blackford Capital, a Grand Rapids-based private equity firm, has acquired Key Health Medical Solutions, a Westlake Village, California-based medical-legal funding and medical debt purchaser. Blackford partnered with Convergent Capital and financing from Comerica Bank to complete the buyout and plans to grow Key Health organically and via add-ons to scale its portfolio assets.

Affinion Group, a Stamford-based customer engagement and loyalty solutions provider, signed an agreement to acquire Prospectiv Direct, the Wakefield, Massachusetts-based online performance marketing company that owns the daily-deals site Eversave, for an initial $30 million plus potential earn-outs. The acquisition is intended to expand Affinion’s digital and local-commerce capabilities by adding Prospectiv’s performance-marketing technology, Eversave daily-deals platform and lead-generation services to its portfolio.

Monarch Robe & Towel Co. acquired Cypress Luxury Bath & Bed Amenities from Russell Newman Brands, completing the transaction on July 13, 2011. The deal consolidates two major suppliers of bathrobes, towels and linens for the global hospitality industry to expand product offerings and customer reach.

HiSoft Technology International Limited acquired 100% of Nouveon Technology Partners, Inc. (NouvEON) in July 2011 to strengthen its higher value IT and process consulting capabilities and expand its U.S. presence. Nouveon, a Charlotte-based provider of IT and process consulting with domain expertise in financial services and energy, will keep its existing management team in place.

SolarWinds has agreed to acquire TriGeo, a provider of log and event management software, for $35 million in cash. The acquisition will add TriGeo's technology to SolarWinds' portfolio as SolarWinds Log and Event Manager (LEM), expanding SolarWinds' IT management capabilities into log/event management, security and compliance; the deal was expected to close in Q3 2011.

eBay Inc. completed its acquisition of GSI Commerce, purchasing all outstanding shares for $29.25 per share (approximately $2.4 billion) and making GSI a separate business unit. The deal included subsequent divestitures of GSI's licensed sports merchandise business and partial interests in ShopRunner and Rue La La to a holding company led by GSI founder Michael Rubin.

Channel Intelligence (CI) has acquired ClickEquations, a paid-search advertising platform that serves large advertisers and search agencies. The deal, completed June 13, 2011, adds ClickEquations' keyword-based paid-search capabilities to CI’s existing product-search and online marketing services; terms were not disclosed.

Visa Inc. acquired Fundamo, a Cape Town–based mobile financial services platform provider, for approximately $110 million in cash. The acquisition adds Fundamo’s mobile money technology and deployments across Africa, Asia and Latin America to Visa’s portfolio to accelerate delivery of mobile payments and branchless banking to under-banked consumers and to expand Visa’s mobile capabilities globally.

Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply, a Montana-based western lifestyle retailer headquartered in Bozeman, will acquire Quality Supply, a Missoula, Montana-based chain with four stores, effective June 14, 2011. The purchase was a planned exit by owners Dave and Suzanne Peterson and expands Murdoch's Montana footprint while preserving most of Quality Supply's ~175 employees.

Reply! Inc. agreed to acquire MerchantCircle for $60 million in cash and stock to combine Reply!'s marketplace with MerchantCircle's network of local merchants. The deal (expected to close in Q3 2011) will create a combined company focused on locally-targeted online marketing, with projected combined 2012 revenues of over $100 million.

Momomi Group, the U.S. arm of Japanese stainless-steel fabricator Momomi Kosan Co., Ltd., has completed the acquisition of Tru-Form Metals, Inc., a California-based architectural metal fabricator. The deal gives Momomi greater access to the U.S. market while providing Tru-Form Metals with additional resources and long-term stability; Tru-Form will continue to operate independently under its current management.

Deloitte purchased substantially all of the assets of Oco, Inc., a provider of enterprise-class SaaS business analytics solutions, to strengthen its end-to-end analytics portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed; Deloitte said the acquisition expands its managed analytics capabilities and rapid-deployment analytics offerings.

Carus Corp. has acquired Sierra Chemical Co., a water treatment company headquartered in Sparks, Nevada; Sierra will operate as a stand-alone subsidiary. The acquisition complements Carus's existing water treatment activities and expands its environmental products and services offerings.

Buongiorno S.p.A. agreed to acquire 100% of Dada.net S.p.A. for EUR28.5 million plus a potential earn-out of up to EUR2.5 million. The acquisition, funded by cash and new credit lines, adds roughly 150 employees and expands Buongiorno’s mobile content capabilities and B2C market presence, particularly in North America.

Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRFT) has acquired Exervio, Inc., a Charlotte-based management consulting firm focused on program and project management, process improvement and data/business analytics. The transaction (approximately $13.6 million in total consideration including cash, Perficient stock and earnouts) adds nearly 100 consulting and support professionals, expands Perficient's presence in the southeastern U.S. and broadens its management consulting capabilities.

Safeguard Acquisitions Inc., affiliated with Safeguard Business Systems and Deluxe Corporation, completed an asset purchase of Hammer’s Quality Business Systems (QBS) of Helena, Montana and subsequently sold the business to long-time Safeguard distributors Greg and Vicki Schob. The Hammers will remain involved during the transition, and Safeguard said the move is part of a broader program to fund transactions that expand its network and help business owners exit.

Intermec has acquired Enterprise Mobile, a provider of mobile device lifecycle services including deployment, training, help-desk support, replacement and repair. The business will be folded into Intermec Global Solutions to expand Intermec’s lifecycle service capabilities, extend support into non-rugged device markets and strengthen offerings to channel partners.

SuccessFactors, Inc. agreed to acquire Jambok, a SaaS social learning and mobile video platform, to integrate Jambok’s mobile video creation, sharing and social learning capabilities into its BizX Cloud Suite. The acquisition is intended to expand SuccessFactors’ learning and social collaboration capabilities and accelerate informal, on-the-job learning for enterprise customers.

Rovi Corporation has acquired TV-tracking site SideReel (terms not disclosed) and is using the acquisition to launch AllRovi.com, a consumer-facing video and music discovery site. The move combines Rovi's search, recommendation technology and extensive media library with SideReel's TV show-tracking and streaming aggregation capabilities to broaden Rovi's consumer offerings.

Match.com, an operating business of IAC, acquired OkCupid for $50 million in cash plus potential future contingent payments. OkCupid will continue to be led by co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan from its New York office; IAC said the acquisition will help coordinate complementary advertising- and subscription-based dating businesses and expand Match's reach with younger, advertising-driven users.

NetApp has completed the acquisition of Akorri Networks, Inc., a Littleton, Massachusetts-based provider of performance capacity analytics and optimization software, in an all-cash transaction for approximately $60 million. The deal adds Akorri's BalancePoint performance and capacity analytics to NetApp's OnCommand management suite to improve visibility and optimization across virtualized IT stacks.

Prague-based KIT Digital acquired three online/video platform businesses — Kyte (San Francisco), KickApps (New York), and Kewego (Paris) — in January for a combined purchase price of about $77.2 million. The deals expand KIT Digital's multi-screen video asset management, social-media integration and geographic presence; KickApps' CEO Alex Blum was named KIT Digital COO and Kyte's Gannon Hall joined KIT's Prague HQ as EVP of Marketing.

Oversee.net has acquired ShopWiki Corp., a New York–based shopping search engine, to serve as the anchor property for Oversee’s expanding Vertical Markets retail division. ShopWiki was majority-owned by growth equity firm Generation Partners; terms were not disclosed and ShopWiki CEO Rory Cumming will continue to run the property from New York as a wholly owned subsidiary of Oversee.

GENBAND has completed the acquisition of Derry, New Hampshire-based Cedar Point Communications, adding Cedar Point's IP switching solutions and roughly 7.5 million lines in service to GENBAND's cable VoIP portfolio. The deal strengthens GENBAND's leadership in the cable market by expanding its product capabilities and customer relationships with major cable operators.

GSI Commerce's Global Marketing Services division has acquired ClearSaleing, a Columbus, Ohio-based provider of advertising analytics and attribution technology. ClearSaleing will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of GSI's Global Marketing Services division to broaden the division's digital marketing and analytics capabilities; terms were not disclosed.

IDEX Corporation agreed to acquire Microfluidics International Corporation in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.35 per share, expected to close in Q1 2011. The acquisition adds Microfluidics' Microfluidizer high-shear fluid processors and nanomaterials processing capabilities to IDEX's Fluid and Metering segment to expand its pharmaceutical and particle-processing product offerings.

iGATE Corporation agreed to acquire a majority stake in Mumbai-based Patni Computer Systems Ltd. in a transaction valued at approximately $1.22 billion (including an open offer), buying stakes from the Patni founders and General Atlantic. The deal creates a combined company with nearly $1 billion in revenues and roughly 24,800 employees, intended to expand vertical capabilities, scale, and cross-selling opportunities across banking, insurance, manufacturing, retail and media.

USA TODAY (owned by Gannett Co., Inc.) has acquired Reviewed.com, a network of product-review websites that provide lab-tested reviews of consumer electronics. Reviewed.com will remain based in Boston with current management staying in place; terms were not disclosed.

SM&A, a Newport Beach-based program lifecycle consulting firm, has acquired Cardinal Technologies, Inc., a Potomac, Maryland-based provider of PMO and IT support services. The acquisition is intended to expand SM&A's capabilities and presence in the government IT and program services market.