Friday, December 5, 2008

MHT, ACG Boston name eight companies as top tech dealmakers for 2008

By Mass High Tech Staff

Mass High Tech, the Journal of New England Technology, and the Association for Corporate Growth Boston (ACG) have honored eight companies in the 2008 Tech Dealmaker Awards held today as part of the ACG Boston Tech Conference. These awards honor and recognize the most interesting, most complex and largest financial transactions involving New England-based high tech companies. The 20 companies selected as finalists are featured in a special supplement to the Dec. 5, 2008 Mass High Tech.

“These companies were built on technical and business leadership, and are proof that the innovation economy continues to thrive in Massachusetts and New England. Despite a difficult economy, these companies have positioned themselves for global growth, whether through mergers and acquisitions, financial investments or public offerings. These are success stories,” said Mike Olivieri, publisher of Mass High Tech. 

A panel of independent judges drawn from the technology, finance and legal sectors evaluated more than 350 technology company deals to select the most interesting life science and technology mergers and acquisition deals, initial public offerings and financial restructuring transactions from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008. To qualify for entry into the awards, at least one of the companies involved in the transaction must be New England-based and the deals must be at least $5 million in value.

“As the country faces its current economic challenges, we are fortunate in Massachusetts to have a wealth of innovation and optimism represented here by our winners and nominees and by their capital providers who understand that our technology and life science industries create the robust industries and jobs of the future,” said Gail Long, CEO of the Association for Corporate Growth Boston.

The 2008 Tech Dealmaker Award winners are:

Philanthropic Deal of the Year: Doble Engineering Co. of Watertown for its sale to ESCO Technologies Inc. of St. Louis with $272 million of the proceeds being donated to Tufts University and Lesley University through trusts established in the 1960s by founder Frank Doble.

Energy and the Environment: Wind energy provider Catamount Energy Corp. of Rutland, Vt., which was acquired by Duke Energy Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., for $320 million.

Hardware: Computer storage vendor EqualLogic Inc. of Nashua, N.H., which was acquired for $1.4 billion by Dell Inc. of Round Rock, Texas.

Software and Services: Speech recognition software provider Nuance Communications Inc., which acquired medical transcription software company eScription Inc. for $367.7 million.

Life Sciences: Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, which was acquired by GlaxoSmithKline PLC for $720 million.

Strategic Investment: Software provider Desktone Inc. of Chelmsford for raising $17 million through partners that included Citrix Systems Inc.

Financial Investment: Travel search company Kayak.com of Norwalk, Conn., for raising $197 million, which allowed it to acquire a key competitor.

Initial Public Offering: Data warehouse appliance maker Netezza Corp. of Marlborough for executing its $115.5 million IPO last summer.

The 2007 Tech Dealmaker Awards are part of the ACG Boston 2008 Tech Conference that took place at the Marriott Copley Place on December 4 with a focus on clean energy technology.