Russ Henke

Attending COFES 2010? Bone up on latest MCAD & EDA Financials!

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:38:00 GMT

MSC.Software…New Era Begins…

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT

In this space on September 30, 2009, the then-latest news on MSC,Software appeared, in a blog article entitled, “MSC.Software…in the news again…”.

As of today, October 14, the company posted a Press Release on its website announcing that Symphony Technology Group (STG) had successfully completed its acquisition of MSC.Software Corporation.

Under the terms of the deal, Maximus Holdings Inc., an investment vehicle of STG and co-investor Elliott Management Corporation has purchased all outstanding shares of MSC stock for a price of $8.40 per share in cash, a total purchase price of approximately $390 million.

Moreover, industry veteran Dominic Gallello joins MSC as CEO. Gallello comes to MSC from Graphisoft, a Budapest-based architectural design software developer, where he was CEO. In addition, Jim Johnson joins MSC as CFO. Johnson was most recently CFO of VG Holdings, a videogame producer that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2007.

You can access the entire Press Release by copying & pasting this URL into your browser:
http://www.mscsoftware.com/About-Us/News/Default.aspx?articleid=1131

Siemens PLM NX 7.0...

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:14:00 GMT

Siemens PLM Software just announced the latest release of NX™ software, the company’s flagship digital product development solution. With NX 7.0, Siemens PLM Software introduced HD3D, a visual environment to help global product development teams unlock the value of PLM information.

In addition, NX 7.0 included enhancements to synchronous technology – the computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering analysis (CAD/CAM/CAE) productivity software introduced by Siemens PLM Software last year. (See blog entry in this space dated February 11, 2009, entitled, “Solid Progress…”).

The NX 7.0 enhancements are aimed at helping accelerate a variety of product development tasks and expand the ability of NX to work with data from third party CAD applications.

The announcement of NX 7.0 was made October 7, 2009 in Paris at the Siemens PLM Connection Europe annual users conference.

MSC.Software … in the news again…

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:22:00 GMT

Back on July 9, 2009 in this blog space, a report appeared that MSC.Software had entered into a definitive agreement with affiliates of Symphony Technology Group (STG) under which a company controlled by STG would acquire all of MSC's outstanding shares in a one-step cash merger transaction valued at approximately $360 million. Under the terms of the agreement, MSC's stockholders were to receive $7.63 in cash for each share of MSC common stock. That price per share represented approximately a 13% premium to the closing price per share of MSC's stock prior to this announcement and approximately a 24% premium compared to the 90 trading-day trailing closing average price per share.

Within days of that definitive agreement, several law firms around the country launched class action suits, alleging that the “deal appeared to be unfair, given the fact that on June 1, 2009, MSC Software shares were trading at the exact price now offered, and that throughout 2008, MSC Software traded at significantly above the offer price, and as recently as October 2008, was trading above $10.25 a share, substantially higher than the current offer.”

That the original STG offer price of $7.63 per share was possibly too low was given some credibility when MSC.Software subsequently received an offer from at least one other would-be acquirer at a price higher than $7.63.

Indeed, on September 21, 2009, the MSC Board of Directors formally acknowledged that it had in fact received an offer from third-party private equity firms to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of MSC at $8.30 per share in cash.

This formal announcement caused STG to react. On September 28, 2009, Symphony delivered to the MSC Board a revised offer to purchase MSC, the terms of which were not disclosed. However, it is presumed that STG’s revised offer is at least $8.30 per share, since the MSC Board of Directors determined that the offer from the other would-be acquirer no longer constituted a “Superior Proposal” and the MSC Board authorized MSC to re-enter into the amended Symphony deal.

In order to give stockholders sufficient time to consider the amended proposal, the special meeting of the stockholders of MSC previously scheduled for today (September 30, 2009) has been rescheduled for October 9, 2009. The time and place of the stockholders meeting was not announced. Stay tuned …

For more background on the MSC saga, readers may want to check out the July 9, 2009 blog in this space, and they may also want to read the MSC News Highlights in the MCAD Commentary on MCADcafe, released on August 20, 2009:
http://www10.mcadcafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=730825

Job Cuts in August lowest in a year...

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:09:00 GMT

More...

September 2009 EDA Industry Commentary posted…

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:44:00 GMT

More...

US Manufacturing Growth…finally…

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:31:00 GMT

More...

Latest Electronics IP and MCAD Industry Commentaries...

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:48:00 GMT

COFES attendees and/or aficionados interested in the recent and future performances of key Electronics IP and MCAD/MCAE public software vendors are invited to read the latest quarterly Commentaries published on EDAcafe and MCADcafe Internet portals. (Earlier blog entries in this space on March 13, 2009 and June 07, 2009 provided access to similar articles for previous quarters).

The latest Electronics Intellectual Property (IP) Commentary was posted on August 18, 2009. It covers ARM, CEVA, MIPS, MoSys, Rambus and Virage Logic.
Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://www10.edacafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=730002

The latest MCAD Industry Commentary was posted today. It covers ANSYS, Autodesk, Dassault Systemes, ESI Group, MSC.Software and PTC.
Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://www10.mcadcafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=730825

(NOTE: The latest Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Commentary was posted on June 04, 2009. It covered Altium, Cadence, Magma, Mentor Graphics and Synopsys.
Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://www10.edacafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=703692

A new EDA Commentary will be posted in the next few weeks).

Reading each of these is often enhanced by first clicking on the “Print” option at the top of the first appearance of each article.

The total number of MCAD and Electronics Industry quarterly Commentaries published by the authors since 2003 now stands at eighty (80).

Enjoy!

July Jobs Report verifies August 2nd Blog Entry...

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:46:00 GMT

This breaking news at 5:30 AM PDT Friday August 7th verifies the August 2nd blog entry in this space:

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent. It was a better than expected showing that offered a strong signal that the recession is finally ending."

Recession Bottom Finally Reached!...

russ.henke@cyonresearch.com — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:39:00 GMT

In four previous blog entries in this space (April 03, May 25, June 06, and July 05), comments were made regarding the search for signs of the “bottoming out” of the current recession that had already reigned for fourteen months under Bush 43 and that has since bedeviled the new President Obama.

While there were in fact several published statistics that suggested a recession bottom may have been reached after Obama’s $787 billion Economic Stimulus Program was enacted earlier this year, sympathy for the woes of the unemployed caused us to focus on the monthly jobs reports from the US Department of Labor. Using that indicator, hopes that we had reached the bottom of the recession during Q2 2009 were dimmed when the June 2009 unemployment numbers seemed to reverse the declining trend of fewer and fewer job losses of the previous few months, even though we knew that unemployment numbers are lagging economic indicators.

But finally, a report on the actual GDP of the United States for the second quarter of 2009 appeared on July 31. While the country’s output was still declining in Q2, the annual pace was only minus 1%, compared to the plunge of more than minus 6% in Q1 2009. (Indeed, until Q2 2009, the nation’s GDP had been on a steep negative slope since reaching +4% in Q3 2007.). The just-published Q2 2009 GDP report provides unequivocal evidence that the Obama Stimulus is working and that the bottom of the recession has already been reached.

But recovery from this bottom point will take months and months; after all, this is already the longest recession/downturn since the Great Depression of the 30’s.

Because job losses are a lagging indicator, the current unemployment situation will be with us for quite a while longer. (The next monthly jobs report will be for July and it will be released by the Labor Department on August 7, 2009). Given the unemployment situation and the worsening budget crises in many states across the country, many economists are arguing that a second Obama Stimulus should be enacted soon.

Contrary to the 2009 Obama Stimulus money that is going to the states to boost local economies and create jobs for ordinary Americans, we recall the October 2008 Bush-Paulson $750 billion bailout money that went solely to selected banks and Wall Street firms -- the same ones that brought us derivatives, credit default swaps and a sea of deregulation that led to the real estate crash and the credit crisis. About the only “comfort” we taxpayers got out of that bailout, was that the traditional exorbitant bonuses to the management and employees of those bailed out firms were to be severely curtailed.

Oops! Breaking news reveals further sordid facts from that mess. According to a report released July 30, 2009 by NY Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, it turns out that nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of 2008 federal bailout money in fact paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008! At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million each went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses each to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers. Instead of being severely curtailed, the 2008 bonus pools at the nine banks that received our bailout money totaled $32.6 billion, while those same banks declared losses of $81 billion.

Meanwhile, meager unemployment benefits have run out for millions of innocent common folks across the country that have already lost their jobs and their health insurance coverage.

The country still has much to do.