What are you looking for ?
Infinidat
Articles_top

J2 Global Wants to Acquire Carbonite That Confirms Receipt of Unsolicited Proposal

Could be 48th acquisition!

Carbonite, Inc. has received an unsolicited proposal from J2 Global, Inc. to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Carbonite for $15.00 per share in cash.

Consistent with its fiduciary duties and in consultation with financial and legal advisors, Carbonite’s board of directors will carefully review and consider the offer to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, taking into account the company’s current strategic plan and growth initiatives.

As part of the commitment of Carbonite’s board and management to shareholders, the board regularly reviews all options for generating and delivering value. Carbonite does not intend to disclose developments regarding these matters unless and until its Board determines there is a material need to update the market.

Comments

Founded in 1995 and public since 1999, J2 Global, formerly j2 Global Communications, continues to pursue its tremendous acquisition strategy.

After buying already 47 companies, this time it wants its biggest fish in storage, Carbonite, after a first attempt to get it in 2012 offering $10.50 per share.

Of course, following this press release, the shares of Carbonite jumped, by 23%, the proposal representing a premium of 28% corresponding to $366 million.

Financial results of Carbonite for quarter ended September 30

(in $ million) 3Q13 3Q14 9 mo. 13 9 mo. 14
Revenues 27.7 31.3 78.4 90.7
Growth   13%   16%
Net income (loss) (1.2) (0.7) (10.9) (4.2)

For the full year of 2014, revenues are expected to be in the range of $122.4 to $122.8 million.

Carbonite, founded in 2005, in Boston, MA, now with around 400 employees, is a provider of hybrid
backup and recovery solutions for businesses, backing up 350 million files every day. It also said to have more than 1.5 million customers, including 50,000 small businesses.

The name of J2 is not known in the storage industry but maybe you have heard of some of the companies acquired since 2010 in online backup in Ireland, UK, the Netherlands and Phoenix, AZ: keepITsafe, Data Haven, C Infinity, Offsite Backup Solutions, Backup Connect, LifeDrive Internet or Offsite Backup Solutions.

But the company has also a strong presence in email, fax, messaging and voice services.

Among all these acquisitions, the prices never were revealed but for probably three most expensive ones: $17 million for Venali, $167 million for Ziff Davis, and $213 million for Protus IP Solutions.

As of December 31, 2013, J2 had achieved 18 consecutive fiscal years of revenue growth. For its most recent 3FQ14 ended September, revenue was up 19.7% to a record $153.0 million compared to $127.8 million in 3FQ13, with $28.8 million net income.

From 3FQ13 to 3FQ14;

  • Business cloud services sales increased 16.4% to a record $108.7 million from $93.4 million including online backup up +$11.2 million or +500%, vs. 3FQ13
  • Digital media revenue increased 29.3% to a record $43.2 million from $33.4 million.
  • IP licensing sales increased to $1.2 million from $1.0 million.

Financial results of J2 Global for quarter ended September

(in $ million) 3Q13 3Q14 9 mo. 13 9 mo. 14
Revenues 127.8 153.0 382.8 431.8
Growth   20%   13%
Net income (loss) 27.6 28.8 86.4 92.6

J2 ended the quarter with $684 million in cash and investments after deploying $52.9 million for acquisitions during the last three-month period and regular quarterly dividend payment.

The company was reaffirming its previously announced fiscal 2014 revenue estimate of between $580 and $600 million.

Former acquisitions of J2 Global

Year Acquired company or asset Price* Activity of acquired company
2003 Cyberbox NA message management, in Hong-Kong
2003 M4Internet NA technology and services for personalized, permission-based email messaging, in San Mateo, CA
2004 The Electric Mail Company NA outsourced email and value-added messaging services, in Burnaby, BC
2004 assets of Call Sciences Onebox NA unified communications, in UK and NJ
2005 assets of Data On Call NA UniFax brand and its subscriber base
2006 Puma Unified Communications NA messaging services, in UK
2007 YAC NA messaging services, in Ireland
2007 assets of Easylink Services International NA RapidFax business
2008 Phone People Holdings NA voice services, in San Diego, CA
2008 assets of Mediaburst NA digital faxing services, in Europe
2008 assets of Mijanda  NA digital fax and voice messaging solutions, in Canton, MI
2008 assets of MailWise NA hosted email security services, in Boston, MA
2010 assets of CallWave NA Internet and mobile based unified communications solutions, in SF, CA
2010 assets Comodo Communications NA fax to email solutions under TrustFax name
2010 assets of Quexion NA hosted email and email marketing services
2010 assets of Realty Telecom NA telecommunications services
2010 assets of mBox NA unified messaging and communications, in Australia
2010 Alban Telecom NA voice services, in UK
2010 Venali 17 enterprise Internet fax messaging solution, in Miami, FL
2010 keepITsafe Data Solutions NA online backup services, in Ireland
2010 Campaigner  NA email marketing solution built by marketers to help businesses strengthen customer relationships and drive sales
2010 Protus IP Solutions 213 SaaS communication services and solutions, in Canada
2011 virtual PBX NA business of Buzz Networks
2011 Data Haven NA online backup, in Ireland
2011 C Infinity NA online backup, in Ireland
2012 Landslide Technologies NA online CRM solutions, in Bostpn, MA
2012 Offsite Backup Solutions NA online backup, in Phoenix, AZ
2012 Zimo Communications NA Numberstore cloud voice services, in UK
2012 Zintel Communications NA cloud voice services, in New Zealand
2012 Ziff Davis 167 media company for technology market, in USA
2012 IGN Entertainment (through Ziff Davis)  NA  video game, entertainment and men's lifestyle content
2013 MetroFax Internet NA faxing services, in USA
2013 Backup Connect  NA online backup service for businesses, in the Netherlands
2013 NetShelter (through Ziff Davis) NA community of technology publishers dedicated to consumer electronics, computing and mobile communications
2013 EPA Cloud NA email security and management, in UK
2013 TechBargains.com (through Ziff Davis) NA deal aggregation website for electronic products 
2014 LiveDrive Internet NA online backup, in UK
2014 City Numbers NA inbound local, national and international toll free phone numbers, in UK
2014 Faxmate NA Internet fax business, in Australia
2014 OzeFax NA Internet fax business, in Australia
2014 Critical Software NA email security and management, in UK
2014 emedia Communications (through Ziff Davis) NA research to IT buyers and leads to IT vendors
2014 Contactology NA email marketing services
2014 MXSweep (through FuseMail) NA email security services, in Ireland
2014 Web24 Group NA domain name, web hosting, dedicated or shared servers and related services to SMBs, in Australia
2014 Excel Micro NA distribution of cloud email security and archiving solutions, in USA and Canada
2014 Ookla (through Ziff Davis) NA broadband and mobile speed testing through its Speedtest website and mobile app

* in $ million

Articles_bottom
AIC
ATTO
OPEN-E