Shareholders of corporate information/database company Hoover’s Inc.
voted to approve the takeover of the company by fellow
database company D&B for $7 per share, or about $117
million.
Once finalized, the takeover would make the Murray Hill, N.J.-based Hoover’s database business, including its growing online subscription business, a part of D&B’s plan to
expand its own range of research and corporate data.
The sale vote would also mark the final chapter in a takeover plan that almost
got bumped off track when a group of dissident Hoover’s shareholders and other
investors stepped up with an offer that topped D&B’s bid at $8 per share.
The competing bid, which valued the company at over $130 million, came from an investment group comprised of venture
capital firm Austin Ventures and minority shareholder Marathon Partners, whose principal had previously called the $7 per offer inadequate because it didn’t value
D&B’s online subscription business high enough.
But within one week, after conducting due diligence on the deal, the
investor group had withdrawn the $8 bid offer, leaving D&B’s original bid a possible
victor.
“We are pleased that the holders of a majority of our shares voted in
support of the transaction,” said Jeffrey R. Tarr, Chairman and CEO of
Hoover’s. “We look forward to closing later today.”
D&B was formerly known as Dunn & Bradstreet.