eDiscovery Daily Blog
Another Busy Year Shaping Up for Mergers and Acquisitions: eDiscovery Trends
One of the trends that most thought leaders that we interviewed in our annual thought leader interview series this year identified was that the eDiscovery provider market was finally consolidating and the pace of mergers and acquisitions was accelerating. So far this year, that trend is proving true.
The latest announcement, the acquisition of Epiq Systems by the private equity owners of Document Technologies Inc (DTI) – and making Epiq the latest Billion Dollar Baby – is already the 20th merger, acquisition or investment involving an eDiscovery software or service provider this year.
Other well-known providers like Recommind, Elite Document Solutions, Content Analyst, Kiersted Systems and Orange Legal Technologies have also already been acquired this year.
As always, to get the latest list of mergers, acquisitions and investments, you can go to Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery. His site keeps a running list of mergers, acquisitions and investments in the eDiscovery industry and goes all the way back to 2001 – almost a full 15 years. That’s even before Kroll merged with Ontrack! He still calls it a “non-comprehensive overview”, but there are 275 transactions, so it’s pretty darn comprehensive (in my opinion, anyway).
Rob’s list not only keeps you abreast of changes in the industry, it’s a great “way back” machine for those who have been in the industry for a number of years and remember some of the providers who were acquired and no longer exist as their old names. And, if you want to know who is investing in eDiscovery companies (besides OMERS, the private equity owner of DTI), Rob has that list too. :o)
Speaking of DTI, they top the list with 11 acquisitions over the years (not counting Epiq), with companies including Data Forte, Falcon Discovery, Fios, Inc., Hudson Global, Inc. (eDiscovery Assets), Merrill Corporation (Legal Solutions Group), Providus, Adept STS, Limited, Applied Discovery, Bridge City Legal, Daticon EED, Unlimited Discovery Group among the acquired. Big fish.
So, what do you think? Are you surprised by the number of eDiscovery transactions this year? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.