Today in Philly Tech History 5/1/2000: Siemens agrees to acquire Malvern-based Shared Medical Systems for $2.1 billion



Tom Paine



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On May 1, 2000, Siemens announced it had agreed to acquire Malvern-based Shared Medical Systems for $2.1 billion. The price per share of $73 was a 76 percent premium to SMS's closing share price of $41.44 on the previous trading day. SMS had turned down an unsolicated offer of $67 per share from Eclipsys Corp in March.

One of the leading providers of information systems to hospitals, Shared Medical at the time had annual revenues of $1.2 billion. But it was facing difficulties, resulting partially from the ending of the Y2K conversion cycle and the rise of Web-based technologies. Founded in 1969, SMS had 7,600 employees worldwide and 3,850 in Chester County, the Inquirer reported when the acquisition was announced. Later that year Shared Medical would cut 8% of its staff, including 300 in Malvern.

What was Shared Medical is now essentially the Health Services Business Unit of Siemens Healthcare and has over 4500 employees, according to Siemens' website. Although still a major player, like several "legacy vendors" it has had difficulty keeping pace with some newer competitors, especially industry giant Epic and other smaller upstarts.

Malvern is still the headquarters for the Health Services Business Unit, as well as for all of Siemens Medical Solutions USA.




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Reuters: Veeva Systems, with significant Radnor presence, taking more steps towards IPO



Tom Paine



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Reuters reports that Life Sciences CRM & CMS vendor Veeva Systems is taking more steps towards an IPO that could occur as soon as the third quarter of this year, and has hired Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank AG to lead the deal, according to its sources.

Based in Pleasanton, CA and founded in 2007, Veeva Systems has much of its US sales and customer service personnel based out of Radnor. Veeva built its SaaS CRM system on Salesforce's Force.com platform; it developed its content management system (Vault) from scratch.

I first reported on speculation about a possible Veeva IPO in March, speaking with Veeva Chief Strategy Officer Matt Wallach, who is based in Radnor.

Wallach said Veeva had 50 to 60 employees in the Philadelphia area. The company had around $120 million in annual revenue last year and is quite profitable, according to reports. It accomplished this with only $7 million in venture capital - $4 million of it institutional
(from Emergence Capital) and $3 million in angel funding.




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