Imation Acquires Nexsan for $120 Million

Imation Corp. has acquired privately held Nexsan Corporation, a Thousand Oaks, CA-based provider of disk-based storage systems.

As the company continues to execute its strategy, Imation is leveraging its storage core, building a platform for long-term growth and improving operating margins in high-growth storage and security solutions markets.

The acquisition of Nexsan brings to Imation a proven technology platform and a portfolio of disk-based and hybrid disk-and-solid-state storage systems with more than 11,000 existing customers worldwide. It is expected to accelerate Imation’s growth in the SMB and distributed enterprise (SME) storage markets. Imation will provide the Nexsan business with global scale and a well-known storage brand for global expansion. With SMBs and SMEs struggling to address their increasing storage and management needs, the combined Imation and Nexsan portfolio will offer customers an attractive, price / performance alternative to competitive offerings.

The combination cash-and-stock transaction included approximately $105 million in cash and 3,319,324 Imation common shares, the equivalent of approximately $15 million.

"Imation’s acquisition of Nexsan is an exciting next step in our strategic transformation, which includes investing in growth platforms in data storage and security solutions, where we are targeting markets with strong growth rates," said Mark Lucas, president and CEO of Imation. "Our strategy includes focusing on the underserved SMB market with purpose-built storage systems and appliances. This is a market that Nexsan knows well. Nexsan’s management team has grown this business from start-up to more than $80 million, with strong gross margins. Nexsan is a successful company that is addressing some of today’s fastest growing trends in storage, and we are pleased that its management team, including CEO Philip Black, will join Imation. The combination of Nexsan’s products, technologies, and talented teams with Imation’s global reach and infrastructure will be an excellent accelerator for our growth strategy in storage solutions."

"We are excited to have Nexsan become part of Imation," said Black. "Imation provides us the scale and global footprint to expand our business, while still keeping intact our award winning partner program, our strong management team and employees, and our innovative products and roadmap. We look forward to working as part of Imation to deliver compelling solutions that meet the growing storage, archive and compliance requirements of businesses worldwide. This is good news for Nexsan channel partners, employees and customers."

Nexsan’s 2011 revenues were $82 million and are continuing to grow, with gross margins in the 40% range. This acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to Imation’s EBITDA.

Approximately 200 employees, based in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, have joined Imation with this acquisition. The Nexsan business will continue to operate within Imation from Nexsan’s current headquarters in Thousand Oaks, CA, under existing management. Integration and global expansion activities between Imation’s Tiered Storage and Security Solutions business and Nexsan will be determined in first quarter 2013.