NetlQ Corp. to acquire the WebTrends Corp. for 51.78 times revenue, The

Weekly Corporate Growth Report, Jan 29, 2001

The Deal: The NetIQ Corp. has agreed to purchase the WebTrends Corp. for $1.02 billion in stock. The acquistion is a move by NetIQ to expand into the business of analyzing traffic at corporate Web sites. After the news of the transaction was announced, shares of NetIQ fell $1.69 to $75, while WebTrends shares launched up $6.50 to close at $32.88.

Discussion:. With WebTrends' Professional Suite, a business can analyze, manage and report on who is using its site, what pages visitors view most and when a problem is about to occur. WebTrends software also monitors security, determining how users access a company's site and analyzes ecommerce functions. Targeting Internet and application service providers and large companies, WebTrends sells to such customers as AT&T, IBM, NASA, Ford and American Express.

The NetIQ Corp. provides resource availability and performance management software primarily for computer networked Windows NT-based systems. Its NetIQ AppManager suite detects and identifies bottlenecks, lags in e-mail response time and other network problems; it then makes the needed corrections and generates the necessary management reports. NetIQ's customers include PSINet, Microsoft and Unisys. Nearly 80 percent of sales come from United States clients. Technical assistance and training account for about 20 percent of sales.