Gary's Blog

Headwaters MB Announces the Sale of Jensen Devices to Bourns, Inc.

Headwaters announced today that it advised Jensen Devices, AB of Stockholm, Sweden, a manufacturer of electronic components, on the sale of its assets to Bourns, Inc of Riverside, California.

Gary Moon, Managing Director and Head of Technology, Media and Telecom Investing Banking at Headwaters MB, added, “We enjoy being involved in transactions like this one pairing Jensen Devices’ innovative and patented FLAT® gas tube technology with Bourns’ worldwide distribution and strong market position in circuit protection solutions, truly a win win for both parties.” 

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Jensen Devices AB Jensen Devices, headquartered and with manufacturing operations in Stockholm, Sweden, designs and manufactures gas discharge tubes (GDTs). The company is well-known for its Sparctube® series of GDTs which are used for switching ignition circuits for automotive HID headlights. Jensen Devices also services industrial and telecom markets with GDTs used as overvoltage protectors. Bourns, Inc. Bourns, Inc. is a leading manufacturer and supplier of automotive sensors, circuit protection solutions, magnetic products, microelectronic modules, trimming and precision potentiometers, panel controls and encoders and resistive products. Headquartered in Riverside, CA, Bourns serves a broad range of markets, including telecommunications, computer, industrial, instrumentation, automotive, consumer, non-critical life support medical, audio and various other market segments. Bourns® products are manufactured according to ISO 9000 and ISO 14001 standards under Six Sigma quality programs. Bourns® automotive products are manufactured in accordance with the TS16949 standard.

 

Headwaters TMT Group Adds Two Managing Directors

I am pleased to announce that the Headwaters TMT Group has added Jim Stone and John Batdorf as Managing Directors.

Jim is covering Technology enabled Services and Financial Technology.  Before joining Headwaters, he founded and ran a specialty advisory firm focused on the government and technology sectors where he advised clients on M&A transactions as well as sourcing and co-investing in growth transactions in the software, healthcare technology, outsourcing and other technology enabled service sectors.

John is covering Software, SaaS, Cloud Computing and Internet, and joins us from Viant Captial, a boutique investment bank in San Francisco, where he spent nine years as a Managing Director.

 

Headwaters and Adobe to Sponsor Reception at Mobile World Congress - Barcelona

Its that time of year again!  Our Director of Research, Mark Langner and I are headed to Mobile World Congress at the end of the month (February 27th through March 1st) and wanted to alert everyone that Headwaters and Adobe will be sponsoring a cocktail reception on the evening of Tuesday February 28th.

Invite and RSVP details can be found at the following link.

Join Headwaters and Adobe for Cocktails at Mobile World Congress

Hope to see you there!

Headwaters MB Advised RightsFlow on Its Sale to Google Inc.

Details can be found:  Here

Headwaters Advises iLoop Mobile

I am pleased to announce that Headwaters MB has advised iLoop Mobile in their agreement with Lenco Mobile, Inc.

Lenco Mobile Inc. (Pink Sheets:LNCM.pk - News) and iLoop Mobile, Inc. today announced that they have reached a definitive agreement to combine their businesses, creating one of the leading providers in the high growth mobile marketing industry. The merger will combine Lenco’s international operations and rich media platforms with iLoop’s market leadership in the United States. Together, the combined company will have operations on five continents serving leading multi-national brands and wireless carriers around the globe.

Headwaters to Sponsor European Digital Media Investor Summit

I am pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring the SIME Investor Summit in conjunction with this year's SIME Stockholm conference.  For those of you not familiar with SIME, it Europe's leading event about digital business opportunities - drawing upwards of 5,000 attendees.  This even will happen in Stockholm Sweden on November 15th and 16th, 2011.

The SIME Investor Summit is adjunct to the main conference, and  is an exclusive two day agenda of workshops and matchmaking sessions, where investors, business development and corporate development professionals can get up close and personal with key decisionsmakers and senior management of some of Europe's hottest new companies and European investors working in Social Media, Mobile, Internet Gaming, Digital Advertising, E-Commerce and more.

Friends of Headwaters MB are extended a free VIP invite to the Summit.  Hope to see you all in Sweden.

No Virginia, The Sky is Not Falling

The 451 Group recently put out a report analyzing the results of their survey of tech acquirers.  The numbers showed a significant drop off in the optimism of corporate development officers regarding the M&A environment for the coming year.  They punctuated their analysis with what could easily be construed as alarmist conclusions:

...there was a bearishness in the responses... that hasn't been seen since we were mired in the Great Recession.

...there's a growing concern about a recessionary 'double dip' that threatens to stall dealmaking for the rest of the year.

While it may only be common sense to point out that a flagging economy, and more important a weak stock market, will negatively impact dealmaking (though sometimes not as much as you'd think).  It’s also "easy" to use history as a predictive measure of the future.   And given the macro-economic instabilities surrounding the U.S. debt crisis, the ongoing European banking crisis, and stubborn unemployment with its impact on consumer spending, it is the fashionable choice to predict a slowing of advisory business around these fears (since the internet bubble burst in '01 and on the backside of the housing bubble pundits are usually in a rush to be first to throw various economic markets under the bus). 

The problem with the "easy" and "fashionable choice" in predicting financial markets is that its also the choice 0f the herd.  And in this case wrong.   There are several issues around my thinking on this, but for now I will focus on one:  surveys tend to be trailing, not leading, indicators of market shifts.  451’s own data backs up my assertion.