EFI's Siris transaction valued at USD 1.7 billion

Under the terms of the Agreement, which has been unanimously approved by EFI's Board of Directors, an affiliate of Siris will acquire all the outstanding common stock of EFI for USD 37 per share in cash. The purchase price represents an approximately 45% premium over EFI's 90-day volume-weighted average price ended on 12 April 2019.

EFI had broken the USD1bn sales mark for the first time with its year-end 2018 results, which were only marred by declines in income and revenue from a “difficult” final quarter.

Year-on-year, the manufacturer reported a 5% decline in revenue for Q4 from its record 2017 closing quarter. The final stretch of 2018 brought in $257m (£196m), which met the upper limits of EFI’s own shortfall predictions, released in January, which were attributed to delayed customer investment due to weakening economic conditions.

Inkjet continued to take up the greatest portion of the company’s business, bringing in 60% of total revenue at USD607.5m, while its productivity software business’ share remained steady at 16% with $168.3m and the Fiery DFE offering saw a slight decline in business share from 27% to 24% with revenue of USD239.2m.

"We believe this transaction delivers superior and immediate value to our shareholders while providing us with a partner that can add strategic and operational expertise to our business," said Bill Muir, Chief Executive Officer of EFI. "We are excited to partner with Siris' highly experienced team on this next phase of growth for EFI."

The first day - Fireside chat with EFI CEO Bill Muir and The Freeman Company CEO Jor Popolo
at Connect 2019

Commenting on the transaction, Frank Baker, a Siris Co-Founder and Managing Partner, said, "EFI is at the forefront of the digital transition in the imaging and print industry, underpinned by a strong software heritage and culture of innovation. We believe that, by partnering with Siris, EFI will be well positioned to capture this transformational opportunity associated with increased digital inkjet penetration, industrial automation and software enablement. We are eager to partner with management to help the Company achieve its strategic objectives."

In his keynote speech, at the 20th Connect convention, Bill Muri spoke about the rapid pace of technological change, which had resulted in some areas of print declining while others, such as digital printing, have grown as had added-value services.

“There are attractive growth avenues within our industry... and some of the areas of the business have incredible room for continued growth. I want EFI customers to be the winners as the industry continues to develop,” he said. “The number of industries that print is touching is truly mind-boggling.”

EFI will file its quarterly report on Form 10-Q reporting its first quarter financial results but does not intend to host a quarterly earnings call. EFI currently expects Q1 2019 revenue to be between USD220 million and USD225 million.

Over 1,000 print and packaging executives took part