Mortice Kern Systems Inc, Canadian provider of project development tools, has acquired the software development management (SDM) business unit of Silvon Software Inc of Wesmont, Illinois. MKS is handing over $10m in cash and roughly 618,000 common shares of its stock in echange for the unit, making the total package worth $13.7m based on Friday’s closing price of C$8.95 and an exchange rate of C$1.515 to the dollar. MKS said the deal will vastly increase its software configuration management market share by adding more than 3,500 customers across 6,000 sites. It also makes MKS a substantial force in the AS/400 marketplace, as Silvon currently claims to be the market leader for the platform. For Silvon’s part, the privately-held company said the sale is in line with its new strategy to concentrate entirely on the packaged data mart business, largely due to its lucrative partnerships with IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp. The transaction will be accounted for as a purchase, meaning that one can expect a substantial charge associated with it for MKS’s current quarter.
