Dun & Bradstreet Corp has won unanimous agreement from the board of Management Science America Inc for its proposal to acquire the Atlanta-based mainframe applications software company for $333m in cash – and IBM has agreed to accept for the 5% of MSA that it bought earlier this year. Dun & Bradstreet intends to merge the company with its McCormack & Dodge unit to create Dun & Bradstreet Software Services with its own board of directors. The bid is $18.50 a share, a handsome premium to the $12.125 at which Management Science shares closed on Friday. Dun & Bradstreet already has acceptances with respect to about 40% of the shares; the offer is conditional on a simple majority accepting; Management Science did $10m net on sales of $195m in the nine months to September 30.
