December 8, 2011 4:37 PM

Cravath Inks Two Deals in One Week for IBM

Posted by Brian Baxter

Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a longtime legal adviser to International Business Machines, advised the tech giant this week on its planned acquisitions of software companies DemandTec and Cúram Software.

IBM announced Thursday that it has agreed to buy San Carlos, California–based DemandTec for $440 million in cash. DemandTec produces analytics software that helps manufacturers and retailers predict market trends.

Cravath corporate partner George Schoen, tax partner Andrew Needham, employee benefits partner Jennifer Conway, and environmental partner Matthew Morreale are taking the lead in advising IBM on the transaction.

In the second deal, Needham, Conway, and Morreale joined Cravath corporate partner Damien Zoubek in representing IBM on its planned purchase of Dublin-based Cúram, which makes social enterprise software used by government agencies for social services. While terms of the transaction were not disclosed, news reports put the price of the deal at roughly $150 million.

The two acquisitions are the latest in a string of recent deals by IBM, which has been busy bolstering its portfolio of software companies in order to better compete with its major rivals. The New York Times notes that the growth of data-analytics and cloud-based computing services has led to a flurry of dealmaking lately, including SAP's $3.4 billion acquisition this week of SuccessFactors and Oracle's $1.43 billion purchase of RightNow Technologies in October.

As previously reported by The Am Law Daily, Cravath represented IBM in September on Big Blue's acquisition of analytics software companies i2 and Algorithmics. The firm's client history with IBM goes back to a long-running antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice that ended in 1982. In subsequent years, Cravath handled IBM's acquisitions of data analytics software companies SPSS for $1.2 billion in 2009 and Netezza for $1.7 billion in 2010.

Robert Weber, a former trial lawyer at Jones Day, is IBM's general counsel.

DemandTec's general counsel is Michael McAdam, while Marko Madzar serves as legal counsel and company secretary for Cúram. Neither responded to requests for comment on whether their companies turned to outside legal advisers on the deals. Spokesmen for Cúram and DemandTec also did not respond to requests for comment.

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