SoundBite Communications to be Acquired by Genesys for $100 million

Genesys, a leading provider of customer engagement and contact center solutions, announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: SDBT) for a price of $5.00 per share. SoundBite delivers cloud-based proactive collections, payments, and mobile marketing applications, as well as proactive customer service solutions to enterprises.

The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of SoundBite and also by Genesys, will be accomplished pursuant to a cash tender offer followed by a second step merger. The $5.00 per share cash offer price represents a total equity value of SoundBite of approximately $100.4 million, on a fully-diluted basis. The closing of the transaction is expected to occur early in the third quarter of 2013.

The proposed acquisition will strengthen the Genesys cloud solutions portfolio, building on its recent acquisition of Angel for self-service and contact center solutions. Cloud-based sales, marketing, and customer service solutions provide companies with the ability to better acquire, service, and grow their business with new and existing customers by offering purpose-built applications that can be deployed quickly by business users. Those users can be located in departments across the enterprise including marketing, accounts receivable, collections, and contact centers.

The acquisition is expected to contribute approximately $50 million in cloud-based revenue to Genesys, bringing the total to over $135 million for Genesys’ growing cloud business. The acquisition will bring Genesys additional expertise in developing, marketing, and selling cloud-based customer engagement solutions and adds approximately 450 new end-customers to its existing base of 800 Genesys cloud customers.  Combined with Genesys’ current cloud business, SoundBite will further extend Genesys’ leadership position in cloud solutions for marketing, sales, and customer service.

With the addition of SoundBite’s market-leading applications, Genesys will enrich its portfolio of cloud-based solutions for marketing, sales and collections departments, and strengthen its ability to address additional user communities across the enterprise. The SoundBite applications complement the Genesys cloud-based customer engagement solutions with additional mobile capabilities, including self-service text messaging, and mobile marketing capabilities, including mobile coupons, in-store marketing, mobile web sites, and on-package QR codes.

“Cloud solutions that quickly solve business challenges are in high demand, and offering these solutions is core to our mission.” said Paul Segre, President and CEO of Genesys.  “The acquisition of SoundBite will expand our portfolio to help our customers meet these challenges, and continues our rapid expansion into cloud solutions in both new and existing markets.”

“This transaction provides our stockholders with a significant premium for their shares, and presents SoundBite with an exciting new endeavor that makes tremendous sense for the market,” said Jim Milton, President and CEO of SoundBite. “We believe existing SoundBite customers will value the benefits of being part of the global Genesys community made up of the world’s leading innovators in customer experience.”

Genesys expects to fund the transaction with available cash and credit facilities.  The transaction is not subject to any financing contingency.

US Arma Partners LP is acting as exclusive financial advisor, and K&L Gates LLP is serving as legal counsel, to SoundBite. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP is serving as Genesys’ legal counsel.

SoundBite Communications is a customer experience management company with deep expertise in delivering cloud-based mobile marketing, proactive customer care, and collections/payments solutions.  More than 450 global end-clients, including nearly 50 Fortune 500 companies, leverage SoundBite’s proactive multi-channel communications and preference management platforms to power 2.5 billion personalized and compliant customer interactions annually across the full consumer lifecycle. www.soundbite.com

Genesys is a leading provider of customer engagement and contact center solutions. With more than 3,000 customers in 80 countries, Genesys orchestrates more than 100 million customer interactions every day across the contact center and back office, helping companies deliver fast and optimal levels of customer service with a highly personalized cross-channel customer experience. Genesys also prioritizes the flow of work to back office personnel resulting from any customer interaction, internal workflow or business application, optimizing the performance and satisfaction of customer-facing employees across the enterprise. www.genesyslab.com