Hummingbird to Buy PC Docs Group for $155m

Computergram International, March 8, 1999

Buisness intelligence software vendor, Hummingbird Communications Ltd announced plans yesterday to purchase PC Docs Group International Inc in a stock swap deal that values the company at around $155m. Under the deal, each outstanding common share of PC Docs will be exchanged for 0.3333 of a Hummingbird common share and PC Docs will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Hummingbird. The transaction is estimated to close during May 1999.

PC Docs Group, which has three subsidiaries, is based in Burlington, Massachusetts, and makes client/server and internet document management and financial and case management systems. Bharat Mistri, marketing director of the company's UK operation said the acquisition was in keeping with Hummingbird's overall strategy of moving increasingly into the datawarehousing market, a process which began last year with the acquisition of fellow Canadian company, Andyne Computing Ltd (CI No 3,321). He said this latest acquisition addresses "companies' increasing need to access information in unstructured databases, bearing in mind that 70% of all information is stored in documents such as spreadsheets, Word documents, graphics or emails."

By merging with PC Docs, Mistri said Hummingbird would be able to offer "a single source of access to all types of data, directly from the desktop." Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Fred Sorkin, president and CEO of Hummingbird said the company planned to integrate its business intelligence technology with PC Docs' knowledge management framework and financial and case management solutions to create an "enterprise knowledge portal." He said the portal would be the first solution to deliver a comprehensive view of all relevant business information accessible via a browser-based interface. "More than half of the distribution channels used by the two individual companies are the same, and so the union will be "very, very synergistic" Sorkin added.

Hummingbird said the acquisition of PC Docs Group will make it one of the top 50 software companies in the world, with combined revenues of $240m, over 1500 employees and 2.5 million users. Ruby Osten will retain his position as president of PC Docs Group and also take up the role of vice chairman of the board of directors at Hummingbird. Meanwhile, sources close to Hummingbird predicted that further acquisitions, this time in the ETL (data extraction, transformation and loading) tool space will be announced within the next month.