Portland, ME August 20, 2001 Contract and trade management solutions firm I-many has completed its acquisition of contract management and compliance solutions company Provato. According to a statement from I-many, the acquisition allows the company to strategically expand its contract management and compliance offerings to additional industries and across the spectrum of contractually based business interactions.
"The products, technology and people added through the acquisition of Provato further improve I-many's position in the contract management space," said Leigh Powell, president and CEO of I-many.
The terms of the acquisition include the issuance of approximately 2 million shares of the company's common stock to the shareholders of Provato and the payment of approximately $1.25 million of transaction-related costs.
Concurrent with the closure of this acquisition, I-many has announced that Mark Christiansen, former CEO and co-founder of Provato, has been named executive vice president, marketing and strategy for I-many. Christiansen will report directly to Powell, and will continue to be based out of Provato's former Oakland, Calif. office, which is now I-many's West Coast headquarters.
I-many's contract management solutions help companies effectively make, manage and maximize the value of business relationships established through a contract or trade agreement. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs Global Equity Research issued a report, "Time to Manage Those Contracts" (February 2, 2001), which estimated the market for contract management software to be $3.1 billion by 2005. Additionally, Doculabs Inc, an independent industry analyst and advisory firm specializing in emerging technologies, recently issued a MarketFocus Report stating "a new generation of contract management technology is bridging the gap" between corporate enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
