Middle Market Deals and how to buy, sell and raise capital from $5 to $500 million

I ran into a couple of partners from vSpring, Dinesh Patel and Paul Ahlstrom, last evening.  They had big smiles on their faces.  Thursday vSpring announced that one of their portfolio companies, LanDesk, would be acquired by Alabama based Avocent Corp (Nasdaq: AVCT) for $416 million, about 11 times the valuation when vSpring bought control of LanDesk in 2002.  Big Smiles.

A press release posted on vSpring's web site notes, in part:

The agreement, which is expected to close within 60 to 75 days, provides for total consideration of $416 million, including $200 million in stock, $200 million in cash and $16 million in assumed options. The transaction value may be increased by up to $60 million if LANDesk meets certain financial targets specified in the agreement.

“This agreement will greatly increase LANDesk’s ability to execute its business strategy, preserve organizational identity, and become part of a well-capitalized enterprise with excellent prospects for accelerated growth,” said Joe Wang, president and chief executive officer of LANDesk. “Because our companies share a similar vision, our combined organization will be able to quickly deliver increased business value to customers seeking better IT management.”

vSpring's web site notes:

LANDesk is a leading provider of systems, security and process management solutions for desktops, servers and mobile devices across the enterprise. LANDesk enables thousands of organizations to easily deploy and use end-to-end management solutions. LANDesk is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, with offices located in the Americas, Europe and Asia, and can be found on the Web at http://www.landesk.com/, or by calling 1-800-982-2130. On the acquisition transaction, LANDesk was advised by UBS Investment Bank. [UBS AG - NYSE: UBS]

Though I didn't see him last night, vSpring partner, Ed Ekstrom was the lead partner involved in the acquisition of LanDesk from Intel Corp (Nasdaq: INTC) in 2002.