Lexmark is buying business process management software vendor Kofax for $11/share in cash, or an enterprise value of $1bn. The price represents a 47% premium to Kofax's Tuesday close, and is equal to 3.4x trailing sales. Kofax provides software for automating processes related to customer interactions that require documents/data to be captured, as well as mobile information capture and business process analytics tools. The company claims 20K+ customers, including 80 Global 100 firms.
Lexmark needs to lower its exposure to a declining printing market, and says that the deal (expected to close in Q2) will nearly double the size of its enterprise software ops to $700m, and strengthen its existing content management and BPM offerings. The company adds pairing Kofax's apps with the data capture tools of Lexmark's Perceptive Software unit will "create the broadest and deepest portfolio of capture solutions in the market, ranging from Web portals and mobile devices to smart MFPs."
The deal will be paid for with offshore cash and Lexmark's existing credit facilities. It follows Lexmark's January acquisition of medical imaging software firm Claron Technology and its 2014 acquisition of document management software firm ReadSoft.