For the third consecutive month, the volume of deals in the Los Angeles mergers and acquisitions market dropped to previously unseen lows, with just 43 transactions announced in February. Since the Business Journal began tracking local M & A; activity in July 2005, there had never been fewer than 46 deals in a single month. With $1.66 billion in deals announced, February had the third lowest monthly value in the past year. More than half of the value came in one transaction after Beverly Hills concert promoter Live Nation Inc. and West Hollywood ticket seller Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. announced a $1.2 billion merger agreement. The only other significant transaction to register during the month was the $365 million sale of Santa Clarita aerospace manufacturer HR Textron to a Colorado company. The following is a list of deals in which the acquirer, seller or targeted business is based in Los Angeles.
Richard Clough
BUSINESS SERVICES
Target: Alliance Bank (Culver City, CA)
Business: Provides commercial banking
services
Acquirer: California Bank & Trust
(San Diego, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Certain assets of Corporate Capital Group (Los Angeles, CA)
Business: Corporate finance operations
Acquirer: WorldVest Equity (Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Integrated Labeling Systems
(Nashua, NH)
Business: Provides automatic identification systems
Acquirer: PEAK Technologies, a subsidiary of Platinum Equity (Beverly Hills, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Irwin Pomerantz & Associates
(Beverly Hills, CA)
Business: Provides accounting and auditing services
Acquirer: Kellogg & Andelson
(Sherman Oaks, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Kyodo USA (Los Angeles, CA)
Business: Provides import/export services
Acquirer: OBN Holdings (Las Vegas, NV)
Deal Value: ND
Target: McMunn Associates (Herndon, VA)
Business: Provides analytical, technical,
training, and exercise facilitation services
Acquirer: Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group (Pasadena, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Outsource Medical (El Segundo, CA)
Business: Provides medical staffing services
Acquirer: Workway Nursing (Burbank, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Certain assest of US-Reports
(Loveland, CO)
Business: Environmental site assessment
practice
Acquirer: Partner Engineering & Science
(El Segundo, CA)
Deal Value: ND
CONSUMER
Target: Earl Scheib (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Business: Provides auto painting and repair services
Acquirer: Kelly Capital (San Diego, CA)
Deal Value: $8 million
Target: Era Aviation, a subsidiary of Era Aviation Investment Group (Beverly Hills, CA)
Business: Provides airline passenger services
Acquirer: Frontier Alaska (Fairbanks, AK)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Mini Dollar Stores (Undisclosed, NY)
Business: Operates gift shops
Acquirer: Worldwide Food Services
(Granada Hills, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Wellstone Apparel (Greenville, SC)
Business: Produces garments for military and commercial market
Acquirer: American Apparel (Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
ENERGY
Target: Certain assets of Constellation Energy (Houston, TX)
Business: Provides natural gas
Acquirer: Macquarie Cook Energy
(Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
FOOD
Target: Luxine (Malibu, CA)
Business: Manufactures electronic heating and cooking appliances
Acquirer: The Vollrath Company
(Sheboygan, WI)
Deal Value: ND
HEALTH CARE
Target: Inland Valleys IPA (Monterey Park, CA)
Business: Provides health care services
Acquirer: EHS Medical Group
(Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Noble Medical Technologies
(Sherman Oaks, CA)
Business: Develops electrocardiogram
equipment
Acquirer: Trinad Capital (Undisclosed, USA)
Deal Value: $312,000
Target: Certain assets of North American
Scientific (Chatsworth, CA)
Business: Designs, manufacturs, and markets prostate brachytherapy products
Acquirer: Best Theratronics (Ottawa, Canada)
Deal Value: $5 million
INDUSTRIAL
Target: Able Card (Duarte, CA)
Business: Manufactures plastic ID cards
Acquirer: First Nations Capital Partners
(San Diego, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Ace Containers (Australia)
Business: Manufactures freight containers
Acquirer: Royal Wolf, a subsidiary of General Finance Corp. (Pasadena, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Charista Global (Scottsdale, AZ)
Business: Processes industrial, concrete and chemical by-product waste
Acquirer: Whitestar Resources
(Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Cyclonatix (Los Angeles, CA)
Business: Manufactures electric motor systems
Acquirer: Ingen Technologies (Yucaipa, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Grand Pacaraima Gold
(Vernon, Canada)
Business: Operates gold mines
Acquirer: Nadir Energy & Mining
(Calabasas, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: HR Textron (Santa Clarita, CA)
Business: Develops motion control systems and components
Acquirer: Woodward Governor
(Fort Collins, CO)
Deal Value: $365 million
Target: SellTech Compressor Pumps
(Valencia, CA)
Business: Sells compressor and valve parts
Acquirer: Burckhardt Compression
(Houston, TX)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Tomcar (Givat Hashlosha, Israel)
Business: Manufactures multipurpose vehicles
Acquirer: Markstone Capital Group
(Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
MEDIA
Target: Bangla Entertainment (India)
Business: Provides motion picture production services
Acquirer: Sony Pictures Entertainment
(Culver City, CA)
Deal Value: $12.3 million
Target: Crave Entertainment (Rancho Dominguez, CA)
Business: Publishes and distributes video games
Acquirer: Fillpoint (Mechanicville, NY)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Golden Pages Publications
(Ramat Gan, Israel)
Business: Offers printed and online directories
Acquirer: Fortune Market Media (Tarzana, CA)
Deal Value: $57.5 million
Target: Certain assets of Jada Toys
(City of Industry, CA)
Business: Rights to the Chub City brand
Acquirer: Dentsu (Tokyo, Japan)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Kerpoof Studios (Boulder, CO)
Business: Provides Web-based interactive
services
Acquirer: Walt Disney Co. (Burbank, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: LA Digital Post (Los Angeles, CA)
Business: Provides post production editorial services
Acquirer: Acies Corp. (New York, NY)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Locals 790 & 847 (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Business: Unionized illustrator and set designer labor organizations
Acquirer: Art Directors Guild IATSE
(Studio City, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Original Productions (Burbank, CA)
Business: Operates as a television production company
Acquirer: FremantleMedia (London, UK)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Shacknews (Dallas, TX)
Business: Operates video game news Web sites
Acquirer: GameFly (Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Ticketmaster Entertainment
(West Hollywood, CA)
Business: Provides ticket sale, resale,
marketing and distribution services
Acquirer: Live Nation (Beverly Hills, CA)
Deal Value: $1.2 billion
REAL ESTATE
Target: Northridge Plaza Retail (Northridge, CA)
Business: Shopping center
Acquirer: Kohl’s (Menemonee Falls, WI)
Deal Value: ND
TECHNOLOGY
Target: AlterPoint, a portfolio company of
several investors including Palomar Ventures (Santa Monica, CA)
Business: Develops network management software
Acquirer: Versata (Austin, TX)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Certain assets of Callwave
(San Francisco, CA)
Business: Virtual fax technology
Acquirer: j2 Global Communications
(Los Angeles, CA)
Deal Value: $12 million
Target: FirePond, a portfolio company of
several investors including JMG Capital
Management & Pacific Assets Management
(Los Angeles, CA)
Business: Develops business automation
software
Acquirer: Acclaim Financial Group
(Marshall, TX)
Deal Value: ND
Target: High Tower Software, a portfolio
company of several investors including Falcon Fund (West Covina, CA), Fulcrum Capital Group
(Culver City, CA) & J.F. Shea Venture Capital (Walnut, CA)
Business: Provides network security solutions
Acquirer: netForensics (Edison, NJ)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Krugle, a portfolio company of several investors including Rustic Canyon Partners (Santa Monica, CA)
Business: Offers online code search and
development services
Acquirer: Aragon Consulting Group
(San Francisco, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Snowblind Studios (Bothell, WA)
Business: Develops video game software
Acquirer: Warner Bros. Interactive
Entertainment (Burbank, CA)
Deal Value: ND
Target: Tycoon Industries (Pasadena, CA)
Business: Develops mobile telephone devices
Acquirer: MAC1 Industries
(Deerfield Beach, FL)
Deal Value: ND
All data is provided by Lazard Middle Market LLC, the middle market business for Lazard Ltd, the financial advisory and asset management firm. The firm’s middle market business advises on mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, restructurings and financings to middle market businesses. Lazard Middle Market secured the data from publicly available sources, which are considered reliable. The firm can be contacted at (310) 551-4111. Commentary provided by the Los Angeles Business Journal.