Update 10/14: Epicor has rejected the offer of $9.50 per share. The stock opened at $6.61 today. Paging Carl Icahn...
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Well, many months later, but a similar story to the Golden Gate-Exact rumor below is unfolding. First noted by the research firm 451 Group (subscription only) a week ago, the hedge fund Elliott Associates bought a 10% stake in Epicor, and was making noises about forcing a sale. 451 took a dim few of the chances of such a sale to the likely strategic suspects (Microsoft, Oracle, SAP), and noted that "private equity-backed ERP rollups – which would have trouble digesting an acquisition the size of Epicor, in any case – have been sidelined recently."
Seems that Elliott has come to a similar conclusion, as they're now making an offer for the whole enchilada. Hope they're serious about being a "long-term player" because as 451 observed, it's hard to see a logical flip buyer anytime in the medium-term future.
But hey, maintenance revenues are up (as a percentage of revenue and earnings - WARNING, WARNING!) - so maybe they can just give the cow a good milking for a number of years, everybody can make some nice fees on the deal, and heck with the customers. Sorry, did that sound cynical?
My company is a UK ERP reseller. We spent a year selecting Epicor after our primary product MAX (which I see you have, on your gravestone!) was "sunsetted" by SSA. Our clients are naturally worried that any new ERP system will go the same way.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main reasons we chose Epicor is Vantage's architecture. It was rewritten in the slack period when ERP sales slumped after Y2K.
Epicor was very astute: they used SOA, so Vantage is inherently 100% SOA compliant. Unlike other ERP players, Epicor does not need to introduce inefficient and error-prone layers of software to achieve SOA compliance.
We'd prefer Epicor to remain independent, naturally. But even if Epicor were acquired, be it by a hedge fund or ERP company, they'd be very unlikely to sunset Vantage!
And unlike MAX, Vantage has enough usesr to sustain its on-going development.
PS: MAX is still developed by its Czech distributor, sold and supported in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe.
I could take MANMAN and run circles around most of what's out there in the marketplace today for a lot less money. MANMAN died because CA didn't know how to manage it after purching ASK Computer Systems. They were not familiar with a user group as active or passionate as the ASK user group was, nor did they understand the manufacturing environment very well.
ReplyDeleteYou can also add Carly Fiona wanting to buy Compaq instead of advancing the HP3000 platform into the 21st century as a factor too. If MANMAN had a decent 'windows' GUI and a platform to run on, I think you'd still see it today.
In 1992 I could take any customer requirement, schedule change or forecast, and blow it down to the man-minute labor level in 20 minutes or less. I was a single person IT shop in a $55 million dollar tier 1 automotive supplier with an annual dept budget of under $400,000 and an inventory accuracy of 99.8 percent.
MANMAN worked because it didn't try to be an ERP package, it was successful at being the best MRPII offering.
Epicor sucks!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.epicorwarning.com/
Soros Hedge Fund likes Epicor bonds...EPIC mgmt must lov Elliot's hugs
ReplyDeletevia The Street:
Epicor Software(EPIC), a business enterprise software company that saw its share price rise from $7.62 to almost $10 in the first quarter (2010), was also a beneficiary of additional Soros buying. The hedge fund manager upped his stake in convertible bonds issued by Epicor, to a level equivalent to 114 million total shares, or 18 million shares more than the previous quarter.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10760366/1/soros-paulson-hedge-fund-dollar-store.html