Quickie: Altair to acquire Datawatch for analytics

Dashing out the door to an all-day meeting and this pops into the inbox: Altair is merging with really, acquiring) Datawatch, a company that makes data prep, data prediction, and high-volume data visualization technologies that Altair feels will enable it to address the anticipated need for big data analytics.

Altair’s James Scapa said in the press release, “Bringing Datawatch into Altair should result in a powerful offering consistent with our vision to transform product design and decision making by applying simulation, data science and optimization throughout product lifecycles. We see a convergence of simulation with the application of machine learning technology to live and historical sensor data as essential to creating better products, marketing them efficiently, and optimizing their in-service performance. Datawatch is a great team of people with best-in-class products, and we look forward to their joining us.”

Datawatch is a public company, hence the merger word. Altair will pay $13.10 per share in cash, for an equity value of $176 million. That’s a 35% percent premium to the closing price of Datawatch’s common stock on November 2, 2018. There’s all the usual stuff about approvals and so on — and there will be a conference call at 8:30AM today to discuss the whole thing. Bottom line: the two companies’ boards unanimously approved the deal and now Datawatch’s shareholders have to be convinced to sell.

More info here.