From today's WSJ, re: 11/5 BOOL earnings play
November 2, 1998
BMC Software Agrees to Acquire
Boole & Babbage for $900 Million
By GARY MCWILLIAMS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BMC Software Inc., continuing its rapid-fire
acquisitions, announced Monday an agreement
to purchase mainframe-software developer
Boole & Babbage Inc. in a $900 million stock
swap.
The deal could make BMC the third largest
supplier of software for managing computers,
behind only International Business Machines
Corp. and Computer Associates International
Inc.
Boole & Babbage, a 31-year-old San Jose,
Calif., software concern, has roots in the IBM
mainframe world. It has been remaking itself to
operate in the new world of ''open'' systems
built on Windows NT and Unix platforms for
corporate computing. Analysts said that unlike
BMC, which also came out of the IBM
mainframe world, Boole & Babbage hasn't been
able to achieve the size needed to compete
against giants such as IBM and Computer
Associates. Boole's revenue for the year ended
Sept. 30 rose just 11% to $218 million,
compared with BMC's 45% growth rate in the
latest quarter.
Terms of the deal call for BMC to offer 0.675
share for each Boole & Babbage share, valuing
the deal at about $32.45 a share based on BMC's
closing price Friday of $48.0625, down 93.75
cents. That would be a 22% premium over
Boole & Babbage's closing price of $26.625,
down $1. Both firms trade on the Nasdaq Stock
Market.
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