Internet-based financial services software vendor Security First is paying $1.43bn for two software companies in an effort to become a leader in the market for internet banking services. Atlanta-based Security First said it will purchase privately-held Belgian firm FICS Group and Santa Clara California-based Edify. FICS provides corporate finance software, while Edify focuses on the online banking industry. Security First says the combination of the three businesses will create a complete financial portal offering which will cover everything from consumer banking, brokerage and insurance applications to small business and corporate electronic banking products and financial reporting systems. The company says the applications will be delivered across multiple channels, including the internet, wireless, and interactive voice response. The FICS transaction will see Security First issue 20 million shares of its common stock. For the Edify purchase, the two companies have agreed to a fixed exchange ratio of 0.331 shares of Security First stock for each Edify share, totaling roughly 6.4 million shares.
Hyperion announced the acquisition of Sapling for $15.5m in cash. Under the deal, Hyperion will get its hands on Sapling’s analytical applications for enterprise performance management, which it is says will enable it to offer a better, more integrated solution than comparable products from Oracle and SAP. The announcement follows the signing of a global reseller agreement three weeks ago, under which Hyperion was given the rights to sell Sapling’s core products, NetProphet and NetScore, as part of its suite of analytical applications. NetProphet, to be renamed Hyperion Activity Based Management, enables companies to optimize the deployment of their enterprise resources. It lets administrators and managers use business process modeling to get a better understanding of resource utilization, costs and operational constraints. NetScore, now called Hyperion Performance Measurement, is a customizable packaged analytic application used to communicate organizational strategy and accountability while tracking progress toward business objectives.
Hummingbird sweetened its offer for document management software house PC Docs with a new bid worth C$11 per share ($7.54), valuing the company at C$305m ($209.2m). The revised offer – which has been agreed to by both parties – comes in response to a hostile bid for the company by Open Text , which earlier this month offered C$8.50 ($5.83) after Hummingbird and PC Docs had already reached a definitive C$212 ($145m) merger agreement in March. The latest bid will effectively replace the previously- agreed plan, Hummingbird says, and 16% of the shares have already been committed to it. PC Docs’ board has endorsed the offer, which is conditional upon, among other things, 66.7% of the outstanding common shares of the company being tendered. PC Docs has also agreed not to solicit other offers and to pay Hummingbird a break fee equal to roughly 5% of the equity value of the company if the deal falls through. Figures were converted at a rate of C$1.458 to the dollar.
Software AG paid an unspecified amount to acquire Software Computing Power (SCP), a Dublin-based provider of internet connectivity for mainframes. The acquisition gives Darmstadt- based Software AG exclusive use of SCP’s package for connecting mainframe computers to the internet for e-commerce applications. The software enables web browsers to communicate directly with mainframe computer programs. A key advantage of SCP’s software, said the German company, lies in the fact that mainframes can be seamlessly integrated with an internet environment and all data saved on the mainframe can be directly used for internet applications.
