Marks Baughan & Co. is pleased to announce its role as exclusive financial advisor to Third Coast Holdings, parent company of Datacert, in its recently completed sale to Wolters Kluwer. Wolters Kluwer acquired the 62% of the shares it did not already own for approximately $180 million, valuing Datacert at $290 million (excluding cash).
Datacert is one of the world’s leading providers of enterprise legal management (ELM) solutions, including legal billing and matter management solutions, serving corporate general counsel and law firms. Datacert serves more than 120 corporations in over 140 countries. Datacert will be combined with Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services’ fast-growing ELM business, TyMetrix. The combination will establish an enhanced leadership position from which to offer broad, innovative solutions, accelerate international expansion, and create operating efficiencies.
This acquisition is in line with Wolters Kluwer’s strategy of focusing its capital on its market-leading, high-growth businesses. Datacert had revenues of $57 million in 2013, of which over 80% is subscription based. Including integration benefits, Datacert is expected to deliver a return on total investment above Wolters Kluwer’s after tax cost of capital (8%) within 3 to 5 years. The transaction is expected to be slightly earnings enhancing in the first full year. Wolters Kluwer is expected to record a non-cash book profit of approximately $100 million on its minority investment at the time of closing, subject to accounting adjustments.
“This acquisition is in line with our strategy to continue to invest capital to extend our leading, growing businesses, of which Corporate Legal Services is one,” said Nancy McKinstry, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Wolters Kluwer. “The combination of these two great companies will enable us to deliver a broad range of solutions for the legal services community,” said Richard Flynn, Group President and CEO, Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services.
“The ELM market standard will be set by this new combined business,” said Jim Tallman, CEO & President, Datacert. “By joining forces with Wolters Kluwer and TyMetrix, we can realize the long-term vision of providing a full suite of legal products and services to our global customer base.”
“Datacert has long been the pioneer in — and quite literally defined — the Enterprise Legal Management market. Marks Baughan is delighted to have worked alongside this incredibly talented management team, which achieved a phenomenal track record of revenue growth and product innovation, in this exciting and successful transaction,” said Nick Baughan, Managing Member of Marks Baughan & Co. “With this transaction, Marks Baughan & Co. further establishes its position as the pre-eminent advisor to leading companies in the legal technology sector, having advised on three of the largest deals in the sector in the past 18 months,” he continued. Marks Baughan & Co. also served as advisor to Anaqua on its sale to Insight Venture Partners (July 2013) and the recapitalization of Aderant by Madison Dearborn Partners (December 2012).
For more information on this transaction, please contact:
Nick Baughan
nbaughan@marbau.com
610.616.3294
Chris Rose
crose@marbau.com
610.616.3298
Chris Skoff
cskoff@marbau.com
610.616.3297
Bill Takeuchi
wtakeuchi@marbau.com
610.616.3296
About Marks Baughan & Co.
Marks Baughan & Co. provides investment banking services to growth companies, primarily in the Legal and Compliance, Information Management, and Financial Technology verticals. Our focus and deep expertise and relationships in these verticals provide our clients with top-quality results driven by an efficient process. Marks Baughan clients range from public companies with multi-billion dollar market caps to private companies with $10 million in revenues. We deliver results for clients: advising on sales of entire companies and divisions, acquisitions, private placements of equity and debt securities, or strategic advisory services for CEOs and CFOs on public offerings, M&A plans, or investor positioning.
For more information on Marks Baughan & Co., visit www.marbau.com.
About Datacert
Datacert is a global technology innovator and the premier provider of enterprise legal management software and services that empower corporate legal, compliance, and risk departments and claims organizations to operate more efficiently, support changing business needs and global workforces, and collaborate with external service providers. Datacert’s offerings include its patented technology platform, Passport®, solutions to manage legal matters, mitigate risk, and control legal and claims spend, as well as innovative business intelligence offerings for organizations that require advanced legal decision support. Datacert solutions are used by Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 corporations, 100 percent of the AmLaw 200, and thousands of legal suppliers around the world. Headquartered in Houston, Texas with offices throughout North America, EMEA, and APAC, Datacert has law firm, vendor, and agent connections in more than 140 countries.
For more information about Datacert, visit www.datacert.com.
About Wolters Kluwer
Wolters Kluwer is a global leader in professional information services. Professionals in the areas of legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance and healthcare rely on Wolters Kluwer’s market leading information-enabled tools and software solutions to manage their business efficiently, deliver results to their clients, and succeed in an ever more dynamic world. Wolters Kluwer reported 2013 annual revenues of €3.6 billion. The group serves customers in over 150 countries, and employs over 19,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. Wolters Kluwer shares are listed on NYSE Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices. Wolters Kluwer has a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt program. The ADRs are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. (WTKWY).
For more information about Wolters Kluwer, visit www.wolterskluwer.com.