Infor Acquires Lawson Software
On April 26th, 2011, Lawson Software announced its definitive decision to be acquired by Infor and its parent company Golden Gate Capital. Lawson, a Minnesota based ERP vendor, develops enterprise software for companies in the health care, food, and retail fields. This merger will significantly bump the Infor company up in the rankings, which will become the third largest ERP vendor after SAP and Oracle.
Infor and Golden Gate Capital has bought out Lawson Software at $11.25 per share, which amounts in total to about $1.8 billion. The merger has sparked unrest and frustration among some Lawson’s shareholders, who claim that the deal with Golden Gate Capital and Infor is meant to benefit certain company officials while hurting the public stakeholders as a whole.
Two shareholders of Lawson Software have filed a class-action lawsuit against the directors in an effort to stop the buyout of the company. They claim that the price of the shares under the agreed upon acquisition on April 26th marks a discount from the closing price the previous day. After Infor’s offer to purchase Lawson Software’s shares for $11.25 per share, the share price rose above $12. On April 25th, the closing price per share was up to $12.50.
The decision to sell was a unanimous one by the boardmembers of Lawson, and the directors, who account for 9% ownership of the company, will also vote in favor of the deal. Although officials at Lawson claim that the decision reached is in the best interest of both the company as well as the shareholders, the plaintiffs argue that by selling the shares at an unfair price, the company’s stakeholders will be the ones that suffer.
While lawsuits by shareholders are quite common following a major merger such as the one between Lawson Software and Infor, they rarely impede upon the progress of the buyout or upon the outcome of the merger.
In a statement released by Charles Phillips, chief executive of Infor, he says that Lawson is a “natural strategic partner for Infor, offering complementary software solutions” and that Infor will work closely with Lawson to build an “enhanced product portfolio and customer service experience”. Both Lawson Software and Infor seem to be excited to collaborate and are optimistic about the success for both the company and shareholders alike.
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