M*Modal Acquired for $1.1 Billion
M*Modal, a clinical documentation services and speech recognition solutions provider, has been acquired by One Equity Partners, the private investment arm of JP Morgan Chase & Co., for approximately $1.1 billion. The deal is expected to close during the third quarter of 2012.
"M*Modal presents a unique opportunity to acquire a market leader in clinical documentation at a time when the company has successfully released its new generation of speech understanding solutions for healthcare," said Dick Cashin, managing partner of One Equity Partners, in a statement. "We will support M*Modal's outstanding management team to invest in and build on M*Modal's reputation for technical innovation and quality products and services as the company ramps up its delivery of powerful new solutions to enhance the processing and understanding of healthcare information."
Under the terms of the agreement, M*Modal shareholders will receive 14 dollars in cash for each outstanding share of M*Modal common stock they own, representing an 8.3 percent premium over the closing price on July 2, 2012, the last full trading day before today's announcement. This price represents a 19.3 percent premium over the 180-day volume weighted average closing price of M*Modal common stock ending on such date and a 33.8 percent premium over the 52-week volume weighted average closing price of M*Modal common stock ending on such date.
"M*Modal continues to reach major milestones in technological innovation, product leadership, and customer successes," said Vern Davenport, chairman and CEO of M*Modal, in statement. "One Equity Partners matches our passion and drive, and we believe [it] will be the right financial partner to accelerate our strategic goals and further enhance our leadership position as the entire industry focuses on improving the cost and quality of care. Our focus is and will continue to be on serving customers through our clinical documentation services and Speech Understanding solutions that unlock value from the unstructured clinical narrative."
M*Modal has launched several new products this year, including Catalyst Suite, which provides infrastructure for large-scale deployment of NLU applications, and M*Modal Fluency, a line of clinical solutions built on the company's cloud-based healthcare Speech Understanding platform. The company also introduced M*Modal Fluency Direct, which speech-enables EHRs and other clinical systems on workstations in the enterprise.