SunGard announced today an offer to acquire the shares of Guardian iT plc for 80 pence per share. The transaction values Guardian at approximately GBP 168 million ($240 million), inclusive of bank debt and finance lease obligations. The offer is subject to certain conditions, principally acceptance of the offer by Guardian’s shareholders and anti-competition clearance in the UK. Closing is expected to take place within 90 days.
SunGard Availability Services (SAS) has approximately 8,000 information availability and business continuity clients, and has conducted more than 90,000 simulated recovery tests and over 1,100 actual recoveries, with a 100% success rate.
SunGard has 2.5 million square feet in hardened facilities dedicated to business continuity with over 10,000 end-user recovery positions with operates in 55 cities in North America, UK and France. SunGard Availability Services also provides mobile data centers for on-site recovery.
Guardian (LSE:GRD) has quickly grown through acquisition into one of the leading providers of business continuity, data management and high availability IT services in Europe. Guardian operates from over 35 locations worldwide, with approximately 700,000 square feet of recovery facilities that support more than 2,700 customers and over 6,000 end-user recovery positions.
James L. Mann, SunGard’s chairman and chief executive officer, stated, ‘We are very pleased that the Guardian board of directors is recommending our offer to Guardian’s shareholders. This transaction is an attractive opportunity for SunGard to strengthen its availability services business in Europe. Combining Guardian with SunGard Availability Services will create a business better able to serve customers in more geographic locations, offering them access to more facilities, platforms, network capacity and technical personnel.’
Keith Tilley, SunGard Availability Services’ European managing director said ‘if accepted, this offer will be good news for both SunGard Availability Services existing customers and Guardian iT’s customers. Both staff teams are very experienced, combined they will be able to offer enhanced customer service, and by building on each others infrastructure we will be able to extend our capabilities both technically and geographically.’