CHARLOTTE,Andy Johnston, a senior associate with boutique investment bank DecisionPoint, traveled to Raleigh recently for the TechExec networking event. And he was excited to talk about all the business coming his firm’s way.
“We are averaging about one deal a month” in 2005, Johnston said. “We should have a new deal to announce in the next few days,” he added in a later email.
The merger and acquisition market has been busy in 2005 with 67 deals closed in the second quarter worth $4.2 billion, according to DecisionPoint’s most recent quarterly update on M&A activity. That’s the same number of deals as in the second quarter of 2004. Another 56 deals were announced in the first quarter of 2005.
The latest deal involving DecisionPoint came earlier this month when DecisionPoint advised Emtec on its merger with DARR Westwood Technology Corporation.
Emtec is a publicly traded New Jersey-based systems integrator. DARR Westwood is the parent company of Westwood Computer Corporation, a privately held provider of IT services to the federal government that is also based in New Jersey. Westwood acquired 55.7 percent of Emtec’s shares in the deal.
“The merger creates an east coast powerhouse service customers in the federal, state and local education and commercial sectors,” said Leroy Davis, managing director for DecisionPoint.
Last month, DecisionPoint provided merger and acquisition assistance for Information Technology Resources in its acquisition of AniWorld. Both firms are based in California.
ITresources provides a variety of application and enterprise management services as well as staffing personnel. AniWorld is a provider of Microsoft solutions and an integrator for Primvera accounting software solutions.
“The transaction has a wide array of synergies for both firms,” said Don Holbrook, a managing director at DecisionPoint. “ITresources will benefit from Aniworld’s (Microsoft) .NET experience and an entrée into the construction and government verticals along with Primavera project and portfolio management services capabilities. Aniworld’s team gains access to the resources and breadth of services available from ITresources.”
DecisionPoint was also involved in four other deals earlier in the year. Its focus is on providing merger and acquisition advisory services for innovative technology firms. In 2004, DecisionPoint helped broker six deals.
For the firm’s most recent quarterly analysis of the IT sector, see: http://www.dpoint.biz/VIEWPOINT_Q2_2005.pdf http://www.dpoint.biz/VIEWPOINT_Q2_2005.pdf
DecisionPoint: dpoint.biz dpoint.biz
