IXI Corporation Wins Big for Investors through Sale to Equifax. 10/28/2009 Sale of Company. Every now and then, an investment works the way it is supposed to. Core Capital, ECentury, and Blue Chip put $7.75M into IXI in 2004, followed the next year by a much smaller ECentury top-off round in 2005. Then, IXI management took over and created a ground-breaking information/research firm that measures consumer wealth through relationships with financial institutions. Flash forward to October 2009, and Equifax, Inc. (NYSE:EFX) buys the company for $124M. No bargain basement pricing here like you find in many of today’s M&A deals. Although the fundamentals went unannounced, Chessiecap gleaned from certain public disclosures that the purchase price was probably around 4.4X revenues and 17.5X EBITDA. Why is this one of the few bright spots in M&A in our region or any region? If there is any trend that has caché in this poor market, it can be found in those companies that add value to information. Whether it is in advertising, research, publishing, or retailing, potential buyers are desperate to get what little edge they can from information businesses. In pronouncements to the press and to the investment community, Equifax was very clearly delighted with the advantages IXI gave Equifax in the highly competitive consumer credit and information industry.
