Mergers & Acquisitions Report February 2009

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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.

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