Source: Directions Magazine
This past week, Nokia offered to buy NAVTEQ for $8.1 billion, nearly 14 times NAVTEQ’s 2006 earnings of $581 million. NAVTEQ acquired Traffic.com earlier in the year for $177 million. In July, TomTom offered $2.5 billion for Tele Atlas, a 32% premium over the stock price at the time. Pitney Bowes acquired MapInfo in March for $408 million, or approximately 2.5 times MapInfo’s 2006 fiscal revenues of $165.5 million. In August 2006, Intergraph was acquired by a private equity group for $1.3 billion, approximately 2.3 times 2005 revenue. In 2002, Microsoft acquired Vicinity for $96 million and in 2004, Google acquired Keyhole but the financial details were not disclosed. And, back in 1999, AOL bought MapQuest for $1.1 billion in stock. Read the rest of this entry »