Gartner Group (NYSE:IT) is in the business of divining trends. Well, this week, the company is leading a trend in its own industry: consolidation.
Gartner agreed to purchaseMETA Group (NASDAQ:METG) for $162 million in cash, which equates to $10 per share. META's stock price surged 51.54% to $9.82 on the news. Interestingly enough, Wall Street liked the deal, as the stock price of Gartner remained steady at $12.60 (because acquisitions are commonly both overpriced and less beneficial than expected for the acquiring companies, buyers' stock prices generally decline a bit after an acquisition announcement).
This combination, though, looks to be full of synergies; for starters, both companies are headquartered in Stamford, Conn. Moreover, both companies provide detailed research and analysis on the information technology marketplace. Both also have consulting arms.
But there is a big difference: Gartner is much bigger. For the first nine months of 2004, META posted revenues of $104.2 million. This compares to Gartner's revenues of $638 million during the same period.
In fact, the sale of META was no surprise. In mid-August, the company announced that Chairman Dale Kutnick had hired Wachovia Securities (NYSE:WB) "to advise it in its evaluation of options to maximize stockholder value."
While the Gartner-META transaction will not have an impact on 2005, the expectation is that the combined entity will be "meaningfully accretive" afterward.
The IT research marketplace is ripe for consolidation, and Gartner is leading the charge, bulking up and solidifying its dominant position. For 2005, expect the trend to continue, possibly involving Forrester Research (NASDAQ:FORR) in some way. Another possibility might be a spinoff of Jupitermedia's (NASDAQ:JUPM) research arm, JupiterResearch. True, the company has not announced plans for a spinoff, but CEO Alan Meckler has a history of doing timely deals and now has a reference point for a sell-off of his division.
Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares mentioned in this article.
