Irvine’s Paciolan, one of the few rivals of West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster, is joining the dominant issuer of concert, sports and other tickets.
Ticketmaster is buying Paciolan, which provides software for sports teams, museums and others to issue their own tickets, for undisclosed terms.
The deal seems to be worth at least $60 million.
The acquisition has triggered a review by federal regulators to see if it violates any antitrust issues. Any acquisition that affects consumers and is valued at more than $59.6 million requires federal approval.
A decision is expected by early August.
Paciolan has won business away from Ticketmaster, including 2006’s landing of the University of Southern Mississippi and its sports teams.
Notable Paciolan customers include the Ottawa Senators, San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies, the American Museum of Natural History and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The company has about 20% of Major League Baseball teams as clients, according to spokesman Shaw Taylor.
Paciolan also provides fund-raising and marketing services for events.
The company’s software was used to sell about 120 million tickets last year, roughly 25% of all live event tickets sold in the U.S., according to Paciolan’s Web site.
Its primary shareholders are venture capitalists and other investors, including Technology Crossover Ventures of Palo Alto, New York’s Argentum Group, Comcast Corp.’s Comcast Spectacor LP and Marwit Capital Co. of Newport Beach.
Ticketmaster’s parent, Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp, had about $6 billion in sales last year.
Paciolan, which has about 170 workers at its Irvine office, is set to keep its management team in place.
The company got its start in 1980 as an accounting firm for college athletics programs. Cofounder Jane Kleinberger, who served as chief executive for 10 years, now is chairman.
It’s not yet known whether the company will pick up Ticketmaster’s name, Taylor said.
Ticketmaster plans to combine Paciolan’s products with its online TicketFast, TicketAuctions, TicketExchange and VIP packages, according to a report on industry publication TicketNews.com of Connecticut.
Ingram Googles
Santa Ana’s Ingram Micro Inc., the top distributor of technology products, has signed on to deliver Google Inc.’s search device for businesses.
Terms of the deal, which recently closed after about six months of talks, weren’t disclosed.
Just mentioning Google creates a lot of buzz among techies. But Ingram says it’s treating it like any other customer, according to Keith Bradley, interim president of Ingram Micro’s North America operations.
“It’s true that we are the first distributor to have a relationship with Google,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the Google brand name, I don’t think we’d be having this call.”
The deal marks the first time Google is set to distribute devices through resellers in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Although it’s not explicit in the contract, the deal is exclusive, Bradley said.
“We are the only guy in town at the moment,” he said.
Ingram’s distribution deals typically last a year with the option to renew, he said.
The company didn’t say how much profit it could see from distributing Google’s gear.
“We do have a target that we agreed with Google,” Bradley said.
There is a big upside for Google and Ingram’s customers, retailers and tech shops that resell gear to businesses.
Google’s wares are expected to net better-than-average profits, according to Bradley. Ingram’s gear gets an average 5.4% gross profit margin. He declined to give specifics for Google.
Google’s search appliances, which look like disk drives, are used by businesses to root out files within internal computer networks, intranets, servers, storage devices and the Web.
There are two versions.
The Google Mini, which sells for about $2,000, can search 50,000 to 300,000 documents and is geared toward small businesses.
The Google Search Appliance, a more robust device, can search across almost all of the information a company stores,more than 500,000 files. The device, its accompanying software and support services goes for about $30,000.
Previously, Google sold the devices directly to customers through its Web site and sales staff.
About 9,000 companies already use the gear, including big media companies, universities, nonprofits, government agencies and law firms.
All orders for the search devices and software licensing is set to be handled by about 100 Ingram workers at its Buffalo, N.Y., office, according to the company.
Ingram gets a cut of licensing fees, according to Bradley.
The deal is part of a larger push by Ingram, with yearly sales of $30 billion, to reorganize the company to operate like a much smaller one.
“We’ve sub-optimized our North American businesses by having a one size fits all mentality,” Bradley said. “I think the niche players have had a little bit of an advantage there.”
The “divisional approach” is set to help Ingram Micro achieve its biggest goal.
“We are constantly looking at how we can take our customer set today and get them into areas of growing profit,” Bradley said.
Expect similar moves to come along, he said.
