UPDATE 1-Autonomy to buy Zantaz for $375 mln, place shares

Tue Jul 3, 2007 2:37am EDT

(Adds more detail, comment, background)

LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - British search software company Autonomy Corp Plc AUTN.L said on Tuesday it was to buy Zantaz Inc. of the United States for about $375 million and was part funding the deal with an underwritten placing of 12.7 million new shares.

Autonomy also said in a statement it expected to post "record second-quarter results, with revenues and profit before tax (adjusted and IFRS) significantly ahead of consensus estimates and ahead of the top end of analysts' forecasts".

Zantaz, whose products capture and store most forms of electronic records and whose customers include nine of the top 10 global law firms, will be earnings enhancing in the first six months, Autonomy said, adding the transaction will add "significant scale" to its revenue and profitability.

Zantaz President and CEO Steve King said: "Companies are rapidly recognising the importance of being able to proactively retain, classify and quickly extract meaningful evidence from terabytes of (data) ... for compliance and litigation purposes".

Autonomy shares, which have outperformed other London-listed software and computer services companies .FTASX9530 by 63 percent over the past 12 months, closed at 728 pence on Monday to value the business at 1.41 billion pounds ($2.84 billion).

The share placing has been underwritten Citigroup and UBS, which are joint bookrunners and joint brokers on the offering.

((Reporting by Dan Lalor, editing by Paul Bolding; dan.lalor@reuters.com +44 20 7542-2737))

($1 = 0.4973 pound) Keywords: AUTONOMY ZANTAZ

(C) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution ofReuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expresslyprohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuterssphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group ofcompanies around the world.nL03226380

Comments (0)
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.