Irvine-based software maker Vision Solutions Inc. last week cinched a deal that’s set to nearly double its size.
Regulators signed off on Vision Solutions’ $242 million acquisition of Southborough, Mass.-based Double-Take Software Inc., a publicly traded maker of data management and disaster recovery software.
The Double-Take buy is the biggest software acquisition by a local company so far this year.
The move should balloon the size of Vision Solutions, which sees estimated yearly sales of $100 million and has some 400 workers in all.
“We will be approaching $200 million in revenue,” Vision Solutions Chief Executive Nico-laas Vlok said.
The deal adds another 400 workers to Vision Solutions’ ranks and some 20,000 customers.
Vision Solutions’ software backs up data and keeps servers running even during maintenance or in the case of a disaster.
The so-called “high availability” software runs on iSeries servers developed by IBM Corp.
Double-Take makes data backup and recovery software for computers running Microsoft Corp. software and Linux operating systems on servers made by Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
The idea behind the deal is to make Vision Solutions’ software compatible with any operating system.
“The combination creates a company today that addresses most of the major IT operating systems out there,” Vlok said. “It’s a complementary fit, since Vision is well-established in IBM and Double-Take is well-established in the Dell and HP worlds.”
The move allows Vision Solutions to break out of its niche as an IBM-focused company.
“There’s an old saying in the sales world—‘People like a single hand to shake and a single neck to break,’” Vlok said. “We provide a wider set of solutions as a single, trusted vendor.”
Double-Take’s on-the-books headquarters is in Massachusetts, but its largest operations are in Indianapolis, where it has 200 workers.
Double-Take had about $80 million in yearly sales before the acquisition.
Vision Solutions, which has some 130 workers in Irvine, is working on an integration plan, according to Vlok.
“The intent is to fully integrate it into our business,” he said.
Vlok said Double-Take’s executives are likely to step down from their roles this week.
The two companies have had a close working relationship.
“We have been a Double-Take distributor for about six years,” Vlok said. “We knew their products well and we knew their people and field operations well.”
Vision Solutions is set to keep Double-Take’s brand name on its products and is considering re-branding some of its own similar software under the Double-Take name, Vlok said.
Vision Solutions’ private equity parent slowly has been consolidating its corner of the market.
In 2007, it bought its biggest competitor, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based Lakeview Technology Inc., for undisclosed terms.
Chicago private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC bought Vision Solutions for $63 million in 2006. Thoma Bravo is the company’s biggest stakeholder and helped to finance the subsequent deals.
Thoma Bravo also acquired Salt Lake City’s iTera Inc., another competitor, in 2006 and folded the software maker into Vision Solutions.
That same year Vision Solutions moved its headquarters from Johannes-burg, South Africa, back to Irvine, where the company got its start and maintained operations after becoming part of South Africa’s Idion Technology Holdings Ltd. in 2000.
Vlok is a South Africa native and Vision Solutions has an office there.
The company was at the center of a takeover battle in 2002 between Idion and Canada’s DataMirror Corp. The fight spanned two years, two continents and, at one point, pitted Vlok against his father.
DataMirror first bid on Vision back in 2000, when Idion won out with a $63 million bid.
The buy caused tension between Vlok, then Idion’s chief executive, and his father, Marius Vlok, then an Idion director.
The elder Vlok questioned what Idion had paid for Vision and later resigned from the company’s board. His son defended the purchase.
Toronto-based DataMirror didn’t give up. It bought up shares and once held as much as 43% of Idion. After unsuccessful bids to gain control, DataMirror gave up trying to buy a majority stake and sold its shares in 2004.
IBM acquired DataMirror for about $160 million in 2007.
