Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of ICG Group (NASDAQ: ICGE) were up as much as 22% today after the private-equity firm said it would sell its Procurian unit for $375 million to Accenture.
So what: ICG will realize a gain of approximately $324 million from the divestiture of Procurian, a procurement consulting firm. The sale leaves the investing company as a pure-play cloud-computing company with what the company says are "market-leading positions in the public sector, compliance, and insurance markets." Separately, the investing group expanded its buyback program from $50 million to $150 million.
Now what: With cloud computing growing six times faster than the general software market, ICG seems to be well positioned for the coming years. In the first six months of 2013, its cloud businesses saw 37% organic revenue growth. ICG stock may be highly priced, but with the gain on the Procurian sale, a management team focused on buybacks, and long-term growth opportunities in cloud computing, I'd expect shares to continue to move higher.
