Storage Software: Vision Solutions To Acquire Double-Take
Vision Solutions on Monday said it plans acquire Double-Take for $242 million, or about $10.55 in cash per share. That is a premium of about 21 percent over Double-Take’s share price of $8.71 on April 9, when the company said it was considering a potential sale of the company.
Double-Take Software, Southborough, Mass., is a developer of software for data protection and recovery, data replication, and application availability, mainly in the Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint markets.
Vision Solutions, Irvine, Calif., develops high availability, disaster recovery, and system management solutions for the IBM Power Systems market. The company is currently owned by Thoma Bravo, a company with equity stakes in a number of technology companies, including Sirius Computer Systems, a San Antonio, Calif.-based IBM solution provider.
Vision executives declined to talk about the acquisition, citing SEC regulations.
The unveiling of the acquisition led at least one law firm to start looking for participants for a class-action shareholder lawsuit against Double-Take.
New York-based law firm Levi Korsinsky LLP on Monday started signing up Double-Take shareholders who are concerned about the acquisition price of $10.55 per share.
Levi Korsinsky said that Double-Take’s share price was higher than that figure as recently as January 19, which was before the company said it received indications that someone was interested in acquiring it.
Double-Take, in a March 12 Form 10-K filing with the SEC, said it is the leading supplier of replication software for Microsoft server environments, and with revenue depending mainly on software license and recurring maintenance.
The company distributes its software through server manufacturers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, through distributors including bell Microproducts and Tech Data, and over 900 solution providers. The company also has a direct sales force which supports its partners’ sales.
OEM and channel sales accounted for about 89 percent of revenue in 2009, according to the SEC filing. Dell is its largest reseller, accounting for about 17 percent of revenue, followed by Sunbelt Software, which accounts for about 10 percent of revenue.
Double-Take’s customer based includes about 22,000 organizations ranging from 20-person companies to Fortune 500 companies, it said in its SEC filing.