Some more multi-billion dollar acquisitions/mergers, including i2 and Aspect Development, Sema Group and LHS Group, E.piphany and Octane Software and Intel and Giga, dominated the international world of IT and telecommunications last week.
Locally, the boardroom rows at Explorer, Planit and Y2KTec stole much of the local attention.
The i2/Aspect Development merger in a stock-for-stock deal valued at $9.3 billion represents the largest ever merger within the software industry.
Paul Booth, ITWeb columnist
The i2/Aspect Development merger in a stock-for-stock deal valued at $9.3 billion represents the largest ever merger within the software industry. The forecast combined revenues for this year will make the new entity the largest provider of software and content for B2B.
Aspect Development will become a subsidiary of i2, with Romesh Wadhwani, Aspect`s chairman and CEO, becoming vice-chairman of i2 and a member of the i2 board. This merger has positioned the company well ahead of its competitors and a major obstacle when it comes to enterprise resource planning and the logistics ambitions of companies such as SAP and Oracle.
The Sema acquisition of LHS Group will escalate Sema to becoming a dominant player in the mobile telecommunications customer care and billing market worldwide. Sema will now have some 2 600 mobile telecommunications staff, with around $400 million in revenues coming from 140 million subscribers at 350 customer sites around the world.
The international IT industry saw several more multi-billion dollar mergers last week, while boardroom rows intrigued local IT pundits.
On the local front
good full-year figures from UAM (but second half of the year poor in comparison to first half-year);
good half-year results from Mustek (revenue and income both up and margins in line with previous year);
satisfactory interim numbers came from ERP.com (revenue below pro-rata forecast for full-year, but profit ahead and eps on-track) and Kunene Technology;
poor interim figures were reported by Unihold (revenue only slightly up, income static if compared to equivalent period last year, but well up if compared to adjusted figures); and
a profit warning from Y2KTec, which seems to be having a torrid boardroom row.
[Local]
Local acquisitions, mergers, investments etc (see attachment).
Local Cautionary Notices (see attachment).
Local Listing calendar (see attachment).
Local Result Summaries (see attachment).
Local Major Event Summary (see attachment).
Other local news included:
the appointments of Kerry Baris as the new CEO at Contlan Holdings and Makano Mojapelo as the acting CEO of SITA;
the announcement by MIH Holdings of a new joint venture in China via its subsidiary, M-Web China; and
the establishment of Commerce One in SA on the back of its Sasol deal.
On the international front
we saw the selling off to global financial institutions by Baan, of its shares in Meta4, a human resource management software company, for about $20 million, thus strengthening its cash position and its continued trading position on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
Additionally, rumours suggest that Yahoo and eBay are involved in merger talks, which if consummated, go some way towards combating the AOL/Time Warner merger; and
Dutch-based World Online, which bought a 50% stake in YeboNet last year, listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
[International]
International acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures etc (see attachment).
Other international news included:
the
appointment
of William Bluestein as president and COO of Forrester Research;
the announcement that Iridium has shut down;
the proposed change of name of Tandy Corporation to RadioShack Corporation; and
Deutsche Telekom is also still on the prowl with Equant, Global Crossing and Cable & Wireless looking to be its prime targets.
Financial results
We saw excellent figures from Audiovox and Verity.
Losses came from Allin, AltaVista, Circuit Systems, Computer Concepts, Condor Solutions, Cypress Comms, Datapoint, Digital Recorders, eSoft, Freeserve, Futuremedia, GateField, General Comms, Illinois Superconductor, Information Analysis, Input/Output, MapQuest.com, MDIS Group, Merisel, NetStore Group, OneLink, Ramtron, Salem Comms, SM&A, Socrates Technologies, SRS Labs, The Fantastic Corporation, VSI Enterprises and Xybernaut.
Good numbers were recorded by Adobe, California Software (back in the black), Computacenter, Jabil Circuit, JSB Software, NTL, Oracle (better than expected), Progress Software, Solectron, Staffware, Tektronix (but only achieved through the sale of its printer business) and Thomson-CSF (back in the black).
Satisfactory results were reported by Data Systems Network, Financial Objects, Optical Cable and Portugal Telecom.
Mediocre returns came from Analogic and Wallace Computer Services; while very poor results came from ATG.
Other financial news included profit warnings from Active Voice, American Xtal Technology, Danka Business Systems, Digi International, Fujitsu, Hitachi. Komag, Lanier Worldwide, SBS Technologies and Toshiba. There were share split announcements from Adaptive Broadband, Applied Micro Circuits, Broadbase Software, Datalink.net, Integrity Software, Jabil Circuit, Rambus, Serena Software and SK Telecom; and very successful IPOs from FairMarket (e-commerce networks), Infineon AG (semiconductors), Loudeye (digital media encoding) and RadVision (real-time comms). Other IPOs included LibertySurf SA, France`s largest free Internet service provider.
Stock movements
Locally
Bynx (-20%)
CIH (-33.3%)
Connect (+21.7%)
Cyberhost (+22.2%)
E-Data (-33.3%)
Explorer (-35.5%)
I-Fusion (+33.3%)
I-Solution (-20.6%)
JemTech (+50%)
PentaCom (-20.6%)
Sethold (-20%)
UAM (-32.2%)
Internationally
Avanex (-25.6%)
Broadbase Software (-25.8%)
Brooktrout (-29.8%)
Computron (+27.3%)
Digital Lightwave (-25.9%)
Descartes Systems Group (-30.5%)
ECSoft Group (-31.2%)
Excelon (-33.3%)
Focal Comms (+36.4%)
Inktomi (+36.8%)
Mercator (-27.3%)
Open Market (-28.9%)
StarMedia Networks (-31%)
Western Digital (+44.8%)
Final word
Fortune Magazine has just published its listing of "Europe`s 25 Super Stocks". Not surprisingly, the list contains several IT/telecommunications companies, including Arm Holdings (RISC microprocessors), Baltimore Technology (security software), Fi Systems (Web design House) and Intershop (e-business software developer).
Although these companies are currently small in revenue terms, they must be watched carefully, as their potential is huge, and they are likely to be among the big names of tomorrow.
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