San Rafael, CA July 10, 2001 Buzzsaw.com appears to be playing a yo-yo act with Autodesk, a design and digital content creation company. Buzzsaw.com began as a spin-off of Autodesk in 1999, with Autodesk maintaining a 40 percent interest, but will now be rolled back in to Autodesk Inc.
Autodesk announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Buzzsaw.com, an online collaboration application provider. As an initial strategic investor, Autodesk will purchase the remaining 60 percent of the company for $15 million in cash plus the assumption of liabilities. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal year 2002. The acquisition will not result in any change to the revenue and earnings per share guidance previously given for Autodesk's fiscal year 2002. For the second quarter, Autodesk also reports no change to revenue guidance, but adds a one-time benefit of approximately $.04 to earnings per share guidance as a result of the acquisition.
The acquisition of Buzzsaw.com is part of Autodesk's strategy to extend its business to complementary new markets. Buzzsaw.com serves customers across the building design, construction and management process. Buzzsaw.com can claim customers such as CenterAmerica Property Trust, L.P.; Dow Corning Corp.; Ellerbe Becket Inc.; Gensler; Imaging Technologies; Toys "R" Us Inc.; U.S. Reprographics; Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM); Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Inc. (HOK); and The Walt Disney Co.
"The Buzzsaw.com spin-off in 1999 was an exploration of the market potential for process automation in the multi-billon dollar construction industry," said Carol Bartz, Autodesk chairman and CEO. "Bringing Buzzsaw.com back to Autodesk now is a perfect opportunity for us to add a proven concept to our portfolio of services that target the management and use of design information. We'll be able to both reach a new set of customers previously unaddressed by Autodesk and enhance the services we provide to our existing customers worldwide."
"Buzzsaw.com and Autodesk recognize that building professionals need a design and project management platform that can help not only with creation of building design documents, but also with communication and management of the downstream building process bidding, construction, and property management," said Mike Hnastchenko, director of technology at Ellerbe Becket. "At Ellerbe Becket, we use Buzzsaw.com's project management application for managing and sharing data for more than 75 projects throughout the United States, Europe and Asia."