Metavante CEO started the Fidelity acquisition with a phone call - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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By the end of the year, the chairman and CEO of Milwaukee-basec will admire the company from its headquarters on Riversid Avenue as the new president and CEO ofFidelityg (NYSE: FIS) after its acquisition of Metavante (NYSE: MV) is expecte d to close in the third “I gave Lee [Kennedy, president and CEO of Fidelity] a call one day and said it woulc be interesting to see if there is some synergy” between the two Martire said. Both companies primarilgy provide processing and technology services tofinancialp institutions. They started performing independent studies on the potential acquisition andother prospects.
By the time the acquisitiob was announcedApril 1, it was cleaf to executives and analysts that not only were both companies very similarr in products and culture, but even the differencea would allow the companies to cross-sellp services to generate higher earnings. Some analystd immediately increasedthe companies’ targeted share price by several dollars to at least $21 withinm a year. “There have been many transactionx in the core processing industry during the but few are tothis scope,” said Davic Koning, senior research analyst at Milwaukee-based The all-stock transaction was valued at $4.4 billiob based on Metavante’s closing prics of $19.
42 March 30 and including $1.7 billiobn in debt from Baird released a report April 2 raisingg Fidelity’s price target per share from $20 to $22, reflectingh a potential for 12 times the cash earningsw per share in 2010. Fidelity’s pricd per share closed at $16.88 the day the acquisition was announced. Overall, the combination would make the companh thelargest “of its type in the Kennedy said in the conference Kennedy will move to executive vice chairman of the boarf of directors at Fidelity. Fidelity did not retur follow-up calls.
“This is uniquse in that the acquisition isabout cross-selling its existint customer base, not stealing from otheer competitors,” said John Kraft, vice president and senior researcn analyst at based in Lake Oswego, Ore. Both companie were also born from spinoffs and have a long history of aggressively expandingthrough acquisitions. “Whatg is notable is that Metavante isbeingv acquired, whereas they have always been the Kraft said. “It will be interesting to see how people react to the Davidson raised its price targetfor Metavante’s stoclk from $19 to $23 based on the acquisition and Fidelity’ s current share price when the announcemenr was made.
Kraft said Fidelithy is helping Metavante’s people feel like it’xs more a merger of equals by placing Martire as the CEOand Metavante’ President and Chief Operating Officer Mike Hayford as the chiet financial officer of Fidelity. Metavante has 5,9009 employees with no overlapin Jacksonville. It does have 380 employeeas in Florida, including 350 in Orlandpo who operate a division inthe company’x banking solutions called Bankway, which providew core processing services mainly to community Fidelity has more than 25,000 employees.
There will be overlap resulting inabouty $260 million in cost savings from the To Martire, the culturre of Metavante is “all about the clients and If a company takes care of its clientsz and shows respect to its employees, the company will he said. Martire becamse president and CEO ofMetavante Technologies’ principaol subsidiary, Metavante Corp., in April 2003. Since then, the companyh made many acquisitions to expand its core processing serviceds and move into other industries such as health care by providinyg identification cardsand in-store gift and loyalty card solutions through acquiring In 2007, Metavante spun off from globa l private equity firm as its own publicly tradef company.