Orange County-based companies were engaged in 302 merger-and-acquisition deals that were announced or completed last year, with about a 55-45 split between local buyers and sellers.
Los Angeles-based investment bank B. Riley & Co. tallied the deals.
A count of total value, which includes only the fraction of deals where the price was made public, came to about $13.2 billion.
Local companies accounted for 138 sales last year.
Financial terms were undisclosed for the bulk of the transactions. Sale prices were available for about 40% of those deals, which ranged from less than $10,000 to $2.4 billion, combining for a total of about $9.76 billion. The average for deals for which prices were disclosed came to $180.7 million.
Sales of OC-based companies were spread out fairly evenly across the quarters. The second quarter saw the highest number of deals—39—as well as the highest average transaction value, at $271.8 million.
The second quarter’s average got a big boost from the $2.4 billion sale of Aliso Viejo-based Quest Software Inc. to Dell Inc., the largest transaction of the year here.
The fourth quarter saw the next-highest number of deals at 36, but had the lowest average price, at $85.7 million.
Pending tax changes meant that “buyers had some leverage over sellers … who were motivated to complete deals by the end of the year for tax purposes,” according to Stephen Perry, a managing director at Janes Capital Partners, an investment banking firm in Irvine. “When they could, buyers attempted to drag their feet in order to derive last-minute concessions. It was incumbent on sellers to expect this and be prepared to successfully resist any change in terms” (see related story, page 30).
San Clemente-based Cameron Health Inc. was the second-largest sale of the year. The company sold to Natick, Mass.-based Boston Scientific Corp. in a deal that could go as high as $1.35 billion with milestone payments.
Alliant
The sale of Alliant Insurance Services Inc. to New York-based investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. also could be one of last year’s largest deals, although financial details were not disclosed.
Newport Beach-based Alliant is the largest insurance broker in Orange County by revenue, with $462 million in 2011, the latest figure available.
Kohlberg bought an unspecified majority stake in the company in November from another New York-based private equity firm, Blackstone Group LP, which five years earlier had paid $1.1 billion for the insurance broker.
Alliant Chief Executive Thomas Corbett told the Business Journal in an earlier interview that “the company has grown substantially over the last five years, and the [latest] transaction value would reflect that.”
The price tag for Newport Beach-based Urban Decay Cosmetics LLC’s sale to L’Oreal SA also was undisclosed, but industry analysts estimate the French cosmetics group may have paid about $350 million. Urban Decay had about $130 million in revenue for the year prior to the sale.
Smaller deals in 2012 included the $9.5 million acquisition of Irvine-based West Coast Radiology Center Inc. by RadNet Inc., a Los Angeles-based diagnostic imaging services firm.
OC-based buyers accounted for 164 deals in industries ranging from technology and finance to automotive and education.
Information regarding values is available for about a third of the deals.
OC investors paid between $42,000 and $860 million for their M&A targets last year, for a total of $3.42 billion. The average price paid during the year was $61 million.
The fourth quarter saw the highest quarterly total at 46 deals, 18 of which disclosed transaction values, for an average price of $54.1 million each.
Biggest Buy
Last year’s largest buy came in June, when Santa Ana-based technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc. paid $857 million for BrightPoint Inc. Ingram Micro picked up two additional companies later in the year—Aptec Holdings Ltd. and Promark Technology Inc.—both on undisclosed terms.
Universal Protection Service, part of Universal Services of America in Santa Ana, was among OC’s most active investors in 2012, with six acquisitions completed from March to November, all on undisclosed terms.
Newport Beach-based Green Automotive Co. made two buys last year. The company, which focuses on conversion, import and distribution of “eco-friendly” vehicles, paid $12.2 million for Newport Coachworks Inc. in Santa Ana, and $20.8 million for Liberty Electric Cars Ltd. in the U.K.
