Infor Buys Workbrain for About $200 Million

Published: April 3, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Infor this week announced plans to acquire Workbrain, a publicly traded developer of workforce management software, for about $227 million (or $196 million in U.S. Dollars).

Workbrain, which is based in Toronto, Ontario, was founded seven years ago, and quickly became one of the leading developers of software that helps big companies manage workforce processes. Its Windows- and Unix-based offerings included labor forecasting, employee schedule optimization, time and attendance, workforce analytics, and employee self-service, and it counted several large companies as customers, including British Airways, General Mills, and Target.

While Workbrain grew revenue and profits consistently over its seven-year life, it's fortunes had started to turn. Revenues for fiscal year 2006, which ended December 31, increased 8.8 percent to $96.5 million, but its costs rose faster, at 9.5 percent, leading to a net loss on the year of $2.5 million, compared to a profit of $3 million the previous year. Workbrain's stock fell 12 percent from January to December 2006, and the company became a takeover target.

As part of the deal, Infor will acquire all of Workbrain's outstanding shares for $12.50 each, which translates into a 22 percent premium over the closing price of Workbrain's stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday. (All dollar figures in this article are presented in Canadian dollars.) The board has already approved the deal, which is expected to close in June, pending a shareholder vote and regulatory approval.

By joining the world's largest privately held software company, and the third biggest enterprise software vendor (behind Oracle and SAP), Workbrain now has a built-in audience, and a prominent position in the IBM System i community, especially now that, Kronos, a competing workforce management software vendor and one of the few vendors in the field to support the i5/OS platform--has been acquired by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners.

And what a large built-in audience it is. Infor claims to have 70,000 customers--not users, but individual companies and government organizations. The number of actual users of Infor's solutions runs well into the tens of millions, and this is just the tip of the iceberg of the workforce that Infor plans to help its customers manage using Workbrain's offerings.

As expected, executives with the two companies' sounded upbeat. "In just over seven years, Workbrain has built the leading workforce management software company based on innovation and attention to the customer," says David Ossip, CEO of Workbrain. "Joining Infor will accelerate our current momentum by providing us access to Infor's 70,000 customers and extensive global distribution network. We believe that all of our stakeholders will benefit from this combination."

Jim Schaper, Chairman and CEO of Infor, which is privately held and based in Atlanta, Georgia, says the company will continue to invest and build upon Workbrain's solutions. "Workbrain expands our current human capital management offering with unmatched domain expertise in the areas of time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, and workforce planning," he says.

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