Morgan Stanley seeks $300m buyer for OpTier

The business transactions management solutions company reportedly wants a deal at a company value of $250-300 million.

31 March 11 15:03, Shmulik Shelah and Batya Feldman

Sources inform ''Globes'' that OpTier Ltd. has appointed Morgan Stanley to find a buyer or large strategic investor for the company. The business transactions management solutions company reportedly wants a deal at a company value of $250-300 million, or an investment of several tens of millions of dollars. OpTier has already raised $116 million. OpTier said in response, "OpTier does not comment on rumors."
OpTier, founded in 2003, has generally been considered as one of Israel's start-up stars, and won first place as the Globes "Most promising start-up 2007-2008". The company is backed by experience entrepreneurs: chairman and CEO Israel Mazin; his brother, vice chairman and COO Ori Mazin; CFO and COO Dov Gal, CTO Amir Alon, EVP marketing, product & corporate development Motti Tal, Eli Mashiach, and Yori Lavi. The Mazin's founded Memco, which they sold to CA Inc. (NYSE: CA) in 1999 for $550 million, and most of the founder also came from the company.
OpTier's investors include Morgan Stanley, Pitango Venture Capital, Gemini Israel Funds, Carmel Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Index Ventures, Plenus Venture Lending Fund, and Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) as a strategic investors.
OpTier held its last financing round in September 2008 at a company value of $250 million, after money. Most of the proceeds were intended for acquisitions, which never took place.
It is difficult to think of a company that will write out the large check that OpTier wants, but the list of potential buyers and investors is a long one: CA; Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ); IBM Corporation (NYSE: IBM) (the enterprise IT leader); BMC Software Inc. (NYSE: BMC); enterprise infrastructure computing developers such as Cisco, Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL), and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW); and enterprise applications vendors, such as SAP AG (NYSE; DAX: SAP) and Software AG (DAX: SOW).
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 31, 2011