Virginia
Businesses in the News
Mergers
and Acquisitions
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the Record is
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America Online, a Dulles-based
Internet services provider, announced plans
to purchase the online marketing firm Advertising.com
for $435 million. Advertising.com, which acquires
and manages ad inventory for Web sites, will
allow AOL to reach more than 140 million Internet
users. (06/24/2004, Reuters)
Dixie Sporting Goods,
a Richmond distributor of sports teams uniforms,
was bought by Collegiate Pacific of Dallas.
Dixie Sporting Goods, which operates in the
Mid-Atlantic region, is the nation's leading
independent distributor of team uniforms with
annual sales of $17 million. (06/21/2004,
Business Wire)
Highland Hospitality Corp.,
a lodging real estate investment trust headquartered
in McLean, purchased four hotels totaling 1,687
rooms from Wyndham International for $227 million.
The properties are located in Parsippany, N.J.,
Atlanta, Hauppauge, Long Island, N.Y. and Boston.
(06/25/2004, PRNewswire)
Evergreen Enterprises, a
China-based home furnishings producer, made a
deal to acquire the assets of New Jersey’s
Ashford Court, which operates a manufacturing
facility in Richmond. Ashford Court intends to
create 25 jobs after the acquisition, which adds
a textile-based line of products to Evergreen’s
home furnishing lines. (06/11/2004, Press release)
LandAmerica Financial,
a provider of real estate transaction services
headquartered in Richmond, purchased, through
its Atlanta subsidiary Inspectech, House Smart,
an Atlanta firm providing commercial and residential
property inspection services. The deal expands
LandAmerica’s footprint in Georgia.
(06/10/2004, PRNewswire)
General Dynamics, a Falls
Church-based defense contractor, reached agreement
to acquire TriPoint Global Communications of
Newton, N.C., a provider of satellite and wireless
communications equipment and services. The deal
enhances and compliments General Dynamics’
communications networking capabilities. (06/09/2004,
PRNewswire)
Hilb, Rogal & Hobbs,
a Richmond risk management intermediary, acquired
Rose Smith Tucker of Knoxville, Tenn. RST specializes
in property and casualty risks in the mining
and energy industries and commercial surety
bonds. (06/08/2004, Press release)
Cardinal Financial Corp.,
a financial services company based in Tysons
Corner, reached agreement to purchase George
Mason Mortgage of Fairfax, a wholly-owned
subsidiary of United Bankshares, in a $17 million
cash transaction. GMM is engaged in the origination
and acquisition of residential mortgages for
sale in the secondary market. (06/08/2004,
Business Wire)
Smithfield Foods, a Smithfield-based
meat processor, agreed to purchase the French
meat processor Jean Caby for $33.2 million plus
assumption of certain liabilities. Jean Caby
will merge with Smithfield’s French unit,
SBS. The merged unit, with combined sales of
$466 million, will operate under the Jean Caby
name. (06/08/2004, PRNewswire)
Argon Engineering of
Fairfax and Sensytech of Newington, both electronics
companies operating in the defense and homeland
security markets, agreed to merge in a stock
deal. Argon Engineering’s stockholders
will own 66% of the combined company’s
stock on a fully diluted basis. (06/07/2004,
Business Wire)
Orkand Corp., a Falls
Church IT firm, agreed to an acquisition by
Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., an international
communications company, in a $66 million cash
transaction. (06/07/2004, PRNewswire)
Performance Group, a
Fredericksburg provider of services in geographic
information systems, reached agreement to be
bought by Essex Corp. of Columbia, Md., a communications
company serving the defense and commercial sectors.
(06/07/2004, PRNewswire)
MeriStar Hospitality Corp.,
an Arlington-based hotel investment trust, reached
agreement to buy the Marriott Irvine, a 484-room
hotel in Irvine, Calif. for $92.5 million. The
facility has 30,000 square feet of flexible meeting
and banquet space. (06/03/2004, Business Wire)
Advanced Radio Corp. of Reston, a developer
of radio frequency products, was bought by Mercury
Computer Systems of Chelmsford, Mass. The $7
million stock purchase enables development of
front-end RF products by Mercury, a supplier
of high-performance signal-and-image processing
computer systems. (06/02/2004, PRNewswire)
Tier Technologies, a Reston-based
software and systems integration firm, has signed
an agreement to acquire EPOS Corp. of Auburn,
Ala., a provider of interactive communications
and payment processing systems, in a $19 million
deal involving $4.2 million in stock, cash and
assumption of debt. The deal positions Tier better
in the field of transaction processing for educational
institutions. (06/01/2004, Business Wire)
ePlus, an enterprise
cost management solutions company headquartered
in Herndon, purchased the software development
and consulting service business of Manchester
Technologies, including subsidiary Manchester
Software of Rochester, N.Y. The deal expands
ePlus’ geographic reach across the East
Coast. (05/28/2004, Business Wire)
TNS, a provider of communications
services for transaction applications, purchased
assets of U.S. Wireless Data, provider of wireless
transaction services that filed Chapter 11 in
March. The deal enhances TNS’s wireless
capabilities and is the first purchase by the
company since going public. (05/26/2004,
Business Wire)
