Printer Maker Lexmark $1B Kofax Acquisition Doubles Enterprise Software Business

Printer manufacturer Lexmark said it will buy Kofax, a 30-year old, $297 million software developer of smart process applications based in Irvine, CA, for $1 billion in an all-cash deal.

Under terms of the agreement, Lexmark will acquire all of Kofax’s outstanding share at $11 a share, net of cash acquired. Lexmark said it will fund the deal with non-U.S. cash on hand and financing. Kofax’s board approved the deal as have the company’s shareholders commanding about 25 percent of its outstanding shares. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2015 pending regulatory and full shareholder approval.

Lexmark said it will fold Kofax into its existing business content and management software unit. Kofax has about 850 channel partners globally and it’s uncertain how they will be integrated into the Lexmark umbrella.

The Kofax acquisition further distances Lexmark from its history as a printer manufacturer history to its new profile as a printing, imaging and software company. The printer maker estimates the deal will nearly double the size of its enterprise software business to some $700 million.

Kofax has about 20,000 customers worldwide, including notables Citigroup, Metlife and Humana. At this point, there is no word about whether Lexmark will take on all of Kofax’s 1,500 employees.

“The acquisition of Kofax enhances our best-in-class offerings so our customers can capture, manage, access, and act upon their information more efficiently, and extends Lexmark into the high-growth smart process applications market,” said Paul Rooke, Lexmark chairman and chief executive.

“Kofax accelerates Lexmark’s development of industry-specific solutions while also immediately expanding our reach into the midmarket, where there is increasing demand for technology to better manage the growing amount of unstructured information and improve customer engagement,” Rooke said.

The Kofax deal is Lexmark’s largest since purchasing Perceptive Software, an enterprise content management (ECM), business process management (BPM), and document output management (DOM) applications developer headquartered in Shawnee, KS, for some $280 million in 2010.

Inb 2012, Lexmark said it planned to jettison its inkjet business and the following year it sold off the unit’s assets.