Thursday, August 31. 2006

Intergraph Acquired by Investor Group for $1.3 Billion

Intergraph announced after the markets closed today that it was being acquired by an investor group led by Hellman & Friedman LLC and Texas Pacific Group in a transaction valued at approximately $1.3 billion. This is not an unexpected move. I believed that CEO Halsey Wise was brought into the company, almost exactly three years ago now, to increase shareholder value, settle the intellectual property law suits, and put the company in a position to be acquired. He has now accomplished those goals and I suspect the incoming financial partners have different plans. Generally, equity investors are looking for two things: acquire a company with lots of free cash flow to return to investors and/or sell off the parts of the whole for a better return on investment than if they simply held the company for its ability to generate revenue. Either way, I suspect that Intergraph will look a lot different in the future than it does today, if it exists at all. I could envision that the financial group that will acquire the company could sell the SG&I division, the group that developed its GIS solutions, to a company like Lockheed or even SAP; companies with strong government businesses that have a keen interest in geospatial technology. More thoughts on this to come after the investor call on Friday morning.

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