Thursday, April 27, 2006

Avocent Buys LANDesk For $416M

Avocent announced early this morning that it is buying Salt Lake City, Utah-based LANDesk Group, a provider of software for centralized management of IT infrastructure. Avocent will pay $416M for the firm, $200M in stock, $200M in cash, and $16M in assumed options. Avocent also said that it also may pay up to $60M if LANDesk meets financial targets in the agreement. Avocent said that LANDesk had revenues of $83.7M in 2005, and that the acquisition will be accretive to its earnings. LANDesk is a spinout of Intel, which provides software for the enterprise desktop market. The firms management tools are used for desktop, server, and notebook configuration and IT management. Avocent was represented in the transaction by Morgan Stanley, and also was assisted by RBC Capital Markets. LANDesk was advised by UBS.