OpenText Makes Bid For Hummingbird
OpenText Makes Bid For Hummingbird
July 6th, 2006: Ups bid made by Symphony Technologies and declares that has 'lock-up' agreements in place with Hummingbird shareholders. July 15th deadline for the offer to be made.
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendor, OpenText is going head-to-head with Symphony Technology Group, a 'strategic holding company' in a bid to acquire one of the world's best known ECM companies, Hummingbird. Not only has OpenText trumped Symphony's bide by US$1 more per share, it has declared a 'lock up agreement' with existing shareholders. What this means, in effect, is that it has raised its own holding from 4.3% to 22.3% - although this 'lock up' is subject to timing and regulatory compliance issues.
The news has been announced by OpenText - with the previous Symphony bid still the only announcement made by Hummingbird itself. A spokesperson for Hummingbird's Australian operation appeared surprised at the news when contacted today, telling IDM that, "The only people who are enabled to speak about things like this are in Toronto (company headquarters)".
The OpenText announcement explained that it is the company's intention to,
'make an offer through a wholly-owned subsidiary for all of the common shares of Hummingbird Ltd. ("Hummingbird") at a price of U.S.$27.75 per common share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 20.0% over the closing price of the Hummingbird Shares on the Nasdaq on May 25, 2006, the day prior to the announcement by Hummingbird that it had entered into an arrangement agreement with affiliates of the Symphony Technology Group and the offer price is U.S.$1.00 greater than the Symphony Technology Group offer. It is Open Text's intention to commence the offer by no later than July 15, 2006.'
Hummingbird has a large presence in Australia and New Zealand with healthy customer bases in the legal, government and financial services areas among others. Gaining the Queensland Government's 'whole of government' contract for document management with partner LogicaCMG in May of 2005 was the most recent high-profile deal the company achieved.