Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
by Beth Ewen
On their first day this spring as new owners of Amcom Software Inc. in Edina, CEO Chris Heim and CFO Dan Mayleben say they instituted a stock option plan, giving options to all employees.
Then they surveyed everyone at the 25-year-old company, many of whom had been there for years. Now the two are starting to implement the ideas gleaned, such as reorganizing customer support, adding 10 percent to the work force and publishing a product time line.
“Those employees were absolutely spot-on,” Mayleben says.
Adds Heim: In the past we’ve found there’s a ton of great ideas in each company that need to be harvested.
Amcom Software is the first acquisition for 2ndWave Software, a company the two formed with CIBC Capital Partners in Boston. Heim and Mayleben are co-investors with CIBC, Mayleben says, adding, It’s not a fund per se so we don’t have a time limit on the investment. They wouldn’t say what they paid for Amcom.
Their intent is to find and purchase software companies under $20 million in annual revenue, a size of firm often ignored by private equity funds and too small for public stock offerings.
There are a lot of fantastic software companies that are in no-man’s land, Heim says. We can lend some value to these companies because we’ve lived in their shoes.
Heim was CEO of HighJump Software, growing the supply chain-execution software firm to $35 million in revenue and selling it to 3M in 2004. Mayleben was the CFO of HighJump Software. Prior to HighJump, he was the CFO at Adaytum Software, which was sold to Cognos in 2003 for $160 million.
Founded by Jack Collins, Amcom has more than 400 customers including Duke University, Stanford Medical Center and the U.S. Army. Amcom’s software is used to automate call centers of hospitals and other institutions, says Amcom’s Michelle Gjerde.
Heim and Mayleben got a call from Cherry Tree, the Minnetonka investment banking firm, saying that its 67-year-old owner sought a buyer. Amcom posted $12 million in revenue last year, and Heim expects $15 million this year.
We’ll spend a lot of time first, getting the operational improvements, and second, purchasing companies adjacent to Amcom’s software, to get the company to a meaningful size, Mayleben says. A doubling in size is the near-term goal, he says.
Heim offers advice to software company owners looking for an exit. Make sure it’s a business that makes money, and has a balance sheet that’s of real quality, he says.
Chris Heim, Dan Mayleben, Michelle Gjerde, Amcom Software: 952.918.3726; mg*****@*******ft.com; www.amcomsoftware.com
