How much is consumers’ personal data worth? Nearly $11 billion, based on two separate acquisitions made during the last two days.
On Thursday, Alliance Data Systems Corp. entered into an acquisition agreement with Blackstone Capital Partners V L.P., an affiliate of The Blackstone Group, in a transaction valued at approximately $7.8 billion, including debt assumption.
Blackstone will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Alliance Data for $81.75 per share in cash.
The deal comes hot on the heels of a Wednesday night announcement by Acxiom Corp. that it had accepted a purchase offer from ValueAct Capital and Silver Lake, two investment firms. That deal is valued at $2.25 billion, and ValueAct and Silver Lake will also assume $756 million in debt.
The Acxiom deal marks the ultimate turnaround in the firm’s relationship with ValueAct. In 2005, ValueAct launched a hostile takeover of the Little Rock, AR-based data compiler. While the effort was unsuccessful, it did result in ValueAct managing partner Jeffrey Ubben being placed on Acxiom’s board.
