Corrections or additions?
These stories by Peter J. Mladineo and Barbara Fox were published in
U.S. 1 Newspaper on March 18, 1998. All rights reserved.
Life in the Fast Lane
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Logic Works sold to Platinum
Logic Works, the University Square-based software developer
that was a darling of Wall Street when it made its IPO, has been acquired
by Platinum Technology, the $600 million computer giant based in Oakbrook
Terrace, Illinois. The Princeton company, which has 190 employees
at 111 Campus Drive and had revenues of $50 million in 1997, makes
several database development and data warehousing tools, including
ERwin and BPwin. The price: approximately $174.8 million in stock.
Logic Works will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Platinum, which
will exchange .5769 of a share of Platinum common stock (traded on
Nasdaq as PLAT) for each share of Logic Works common stock (on Nasdaq
as LGWX).
The two companies are boasting numerous "synergies," though
it will also certainly bring change and a certain amount of downsizing.
Logic Works’ management team, headed by Gregory A. Peters, the president
and CEO who succeeded Ben Cohen, Logic Works’ founder and current
chairman, is not expected to stay on after the merger is completed.
Cohen already has embarked on a new venture, involving "a next-generation
E-mail product." Although Logic Works officials say that Platinum
will not relocate its facility at 111 Campus Drive, there will be
some reduction of staff. "It would be in the areas of accounting
and human resources that we would expect the reductions to occur,"
says Logic Works spokesperson Lina Page.
"Platinum, like Computer Associates, are consolidators who buy
anything, usually at a fire sale price," counters Dan Spinner,
an analyst and managing director of Progressive Strategies in New
York. "A good price is five-times-sales, and in this case the
price of between two-to-three-times-sales — in exchange for, not
even cash but stock — puts it in the fire sale category,"
says Spinner.
"This essentially is the board having no desire to deal with the
hassles, saying `I don’t want to deal with this any more.’ Ever since
Ben Cohen was ousted, there was no more leader."
Some Logic Works employees may feel their days are limited.
In the past week, says Bradley Schragin, a Logic Works alumnus who
is now vice president of sales and marketing for TV Objects, a software
development firm at 600 Alexander Road, "my phone’s been ringing
off the hook" with calls from employees at Logic Works inquiring
about jobs.
"Based on past performance, Platinum will save the development
staff and let go of everyone else," says Schragin. He estimates
that a company like Platinum will only keep Logic Works’ 40 or 50
software developers. "They don’t need marketing, management or
sales," he says. "Logic Works will be a little development
shop for a big company."
But Logic Works disputes this. Logic Works’ sales and marketing unit,
consisting of roughly 100 employees, "is very much going to remain
intact," says Page. Platinum is involved in several arenas, including
database and systems management, data warehousing and decision support,
application infrastructure management, and Year 2000 engineering.
Logic Works provides modeling and design tools for client/server databases,
data warehousing, and business process reengineering.
Logic Works currently has 42 percent of the data warehousing design
market; Platinum offers a solution for building and managing data
warehouses, says a press release. Also, claims Logic Works, the product
lines of the two companies have only a minimal overlap and Logic Works
will now provide Platinum with better "cross-selling opportunities."
Platinum’s goal is to get the lion’s share of the enterprise modeling
market. The combination of the Logic Works technology with Platinum’s
resources will create an entity that has "the leading technology
for entity relational, business process, and object-oriented modeling,"
says Page.
This move ends a relatively dramatic chapter in the history of this
information age company. Started in 1988 by Ben Cohen, Logic Works
took off like a revenue rocket, doing an impressive $28 million initial
public offering in October, 1995. Cohen appeared on the cover of Business
Week in early 1996 as CEO of the third fastest-growing company on
the magazine’s hot growth list. But sagging profits and stock prices
forced Cohen to relinquish the president and CEO titles by early 1997.
Recently, however, the stock has been recovering. From a low in April,
1997, of under $5 per share, it’s now up to $13. It’s gone up three
points just in the past month.
Cohen, meanwhile, is elated over this sale. "To me it’s like victory
to get the stock up and sell to a larger company," he says. "It’s
a very successful endgame for Logic Works. In the industry consolidation
is a fact of life. With our industry going through changes, consolidation
was a question of when, not whether. We didn’t want to be the last
company to consolidate."
Cohen has started a new software enterprise, Tacit Communications,
developing an E-mail product that utilizes what he calls "knowledge
management" technologies. Currently operating in Forrestal Village,
he expects to move the operation to the Route 128 corridor in Boston.
Frank Cicio, the former vice president of sales and marketing of Logic
Works who is now senior vice president of Icon Systems, a Internet
firm based in Weehawken that recently went public, thinks that the
Logic Works acquisition will help Platinum focus on end users. Logic
Works has "clearly been the leader in providing productivity tools
to the programmer, to the database administrator," he says. Software
such as ERwin, Cicio says, "will be a great add-on to their product
line."
But he reserves more moderation in describing the acquisition. "Financially
it sounds like a good deal for Logic Works considering where it’s
been in the last year," he says. "I’m not too sure if I would
call it a victory, I would say it’s appropriate."
— Peter J. Mladineo
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New in Town
Costa, branch manager. 609-538-9330; fax, 609-538-9335.
Anything from maid service to digging to convention setup is provided
by a new branch of a national firm with 350 offices nationwide. It
trades on Nasdaq as LBOR. Mike Rizzo opened this office last month
but soon he will be turning the three person office over to John Costa,
the new branch manager.
The firm offers to supply temporary workers "a day or an hour
before you need help," and offers a no-hassle refund if the employer
calls within two hours of the starting time.
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Down-Sizing
1, Jamesburg 08831. Paul Murray, vice president. 609-409-2500; fax,
609-409-2502. Home page: http://www.wang.com.
Wang Laboratories has consolidated its service centers in Bordentown,
Edison, at 600 Alexander Road in Princeton to 1095 Cranbury South
River Road, says Eileen Palumbo, formerly in charge of Princeton’s
office. The firm has its headquarters in Massachusetts.
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Leaving Town
08691-1604. M. Robert Arpin, president.
This moving and storage firm has closed and its operations merged
with the Atlas-connected firm, Ace Worldwide Moving, at 45 Executive
Drive, Edison 08817. Phone is 732-248-5755, fax 732-248-5778.
3, Edison 08837. Doug Petrozzini, senior vice president. 732-225-0433;
fax, 732-225-6167.
Grubb & Ellis moved from 2 Research Way to Edison’s Raritan Plaza
3. Phone and fax are new.
812 Route 206, Princeton 08540. Douglas M. McEwen, regional sales
manager.
Douglas McEwen has moved his information technology sales office of
the National Council on Compensation Insurance from 812 Route 206
to a 25-person office at 5 Marine View Plaza, Fourth Floor, Hoboken
07030, 201-222-0500; fax, 201-222-8880. Headquartered in Boca Raton,
the firm collects data in 32 states for various insurance companies
and specializes in workers’ compensation.
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Management Moves
Box 1658, Trenton 08607-1658; 609-394-4000; fax, 609-394-4032.
Charles E. Baer has resigned as president and CEO of the system formed
by the merger of Mercer and Helene Fuld medical centers. Baer had
been CEO at Mercer Medical, and Al Maghazehe (who had been Helene
Fuld’s CEO, following the resignation of Ira Shimp) has been named
interim president and CEO.
Center, Princeton 08540. Alice Irby, president. 609-720-6500; fax,
609-720-6550. Home page: http://www.chauncey.com.
Upon Alice Irby’s imminent retirement, Judith D. Moore will be president
and CEO of ETS’ for-profit subsidiary. Moore is now president of the
National Industries for the Blind, which provides jobs for 5,500 in
115 facilities. She had also been director of state and local government
relations at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York. The subsidiary
does testing, certification and other human resource development services
for corporations, the professions, and government.
Drive, Somerset 08873. Deborah Dowdell, executive vice president.
732-302-1800; fax, 732-302-1804.
Frank Panico, owner of the New Brunswick restaurant with the eponoymous
name, is the new president of the association.
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Deaths
equity research analysts at Bloomberg Financial Markets.
University and was the first woman to earn a pilot’s license at Mercer
County Airport.
practical nurse at the Medical Center at Princeton.
on Moore Street from 1972 to 1997.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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