Lexmark International has signed as agreement to acquire Germany-based Saperion AG, a leading developer and provider of enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) software in Europe, for a cash purchase price of approximately $72-million.
Upon the closing of the transaction, Saperion will report into Perceptive Software.
Saperion’s ECM/BPM products feature a platform-independent, multilingual architecture, making the products highly scalable and easy to integrate with all major ERP, email and document management systems.
Saperion has also developed leading cloud-based and mobile ECM solutions to provide workers easy and intuitive access to important content, even when they are away from the office. The offering empowers businesses to efficiently manage an increasing volume of information, to automate and streamline business processes, and to realise productivity gains.
Saperion has a large installed base of customers consisting of medium-sized companies as well as global accounts such as Schindler, E.ON, Fleurop, Henkel, Lufthansa, Vodafone, Daimler and Siemens with corporate-wide rollouts.
This acquisition illustrates Lexmark’s consistent execution of the company’s stated capital allocation framework. Lexmark’s capital allocation framework is to pursue acquisitions that support growth and increase software and solutions capabilities, while returning more than 50% of free cash flow to shareholders, on average, through quarterly dividends and share repurchases.
Since mid-2011, Lexmark has returned more than $600-million to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases.
Lexmark retains a strong liquidity position with a long history of cash generation.
“Lexmark continues to deepen and expand its content and process capabilities and solutions, which in turn improves our ability to help our customers manage their unstructured information challenges,” says Paul Rooke, Lexmark’s chairman and CEO.
“Upon closing, Saperion will be the latest software acquisition that strengthens Lexmark’s transition from being a global leader in imaging and output technology to one that offers enterprises end-to-end solutions.”
Herbert Lorch, CEO of Saperion, adds: “Collaboration with Perceptive will open new markets for Saperion. We will be able to offer and support our solutions in regions where we were previously not represented. Our customers will benefit from our expanded international presence and globally active companies will receive even greater support around the world.”