divine Acquires Delano Technology
Continuing on its recent buying spree divine, inc., , the Chicago-based incubator-turned-software-specialist, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based Delano Technology Corp.
, a marketing solutions firm.
Under the terms of the stock-for-stock merger agreement, divine will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Delano common stock for a fixed exchange rate in which divine will issue 1.1870 divine shares for each share of Delano common stock, approximately 51.55 million divine shares.
The deal will be subject to customary regulatory and court approvals, as well as the approval of Delano’s shareholders.
Shareholders holding approximately 13 percent of Delano’s outstanding shares have already agreed to vote in favor of the transaction.
“Today’s extended enterprises must seamlessly managing proactive, outbound campaigns and inbound service requests,” says George Landgrebe, president of divine Software Services.
“Delano’s strength in providing solutions that help companies proactively communicate with their customers and partners via email and the Internet complements perfectly divine’s existing customer interaction management (CIM) solutions,” he continues.
He says the acquisition will help divine take advantage of the opportunities in the growing Campaign Management/eMarketing segment.
“Delano also deepens our presence in key vertical markets, including financial services, automotive and entertainment.”
divine’s solution suite encompasses telephony and Internet-based campaign management, as well as inbound call center and contact center management and will be combined with Delano’s Marketing Velocity suite of applications.
divine will also be able to Web services-based application interoperability strategy through leveraging Delano’s software platform, the Delano e-Business Interaction Suite, which provides open-standards architecture that will accelerate divine’s
divines global sales and professional services delivery organizations will immediately start selling Delano solutions.
“Delano has successfully differentiated itself as a provider of extremely sophisticated interaction management solutions at low total cost, yet we have lacked the scale to take full advantage of the assets we have,” says Vikas Kapoor, chief executive officer of Delano.
“Customers are now demanding comprehensive integrated suites. This merger is a strategic opportunity for Delano to realize the full potential of our technology while leveraging divine’s leading extended enterprise solutions, as well as its strong sales and professional services organizations.”
Founded in 1999, divine (formerly divine Interventures, Inc.) currently serves over 20,000 customers. The firm has made several acquisitions in the last year of software companies, particularly of those in the ASP space.