2 info-tech firms say merger is equal

"Merger of equals" is like "my check is in the mail" or "100-story Philadelphia building."

Equals don't merge. You buy, or you're bought. Someone has to be boss.

But Diego Calderin, chief executive officer at Philadelphia information technology integrator Anexinet Corp., and John Connolly, his counterpart at data-center operator Virtus Partners L.L.C., of East Norriton, said they promised to share when they combined their owner-operated IT firms last month.

Anexinet has more people - more than 150, to just 22 at Virtus. Virtus has higher sales - a little more than half of their combined $50 million.

But these guys "have been watching each other for years," Calderin said - since each worked at an earlier Philadelphia corporate IT consultant, Actium Corp., in the early 1990s.

When Actium sold to Modis Professional Services in 1998, "I went into the services business, and John started Virtus and went into the data business," Calderin said. "We'd refer each other to clients."

"It's a high level of trust, going back and forth," Connolly said.

"We were approaching different sides of the market . . .," Calderin said.

". . . and there's very little overlap," Connolly said.

Anexinet absorbed Sycamore Group, of Fort Washington, two years ago, part of a consolidation in the IT-consulting business that left a handful of national firms like Accenture Ltd. and BearingPoint Inc. leading the pack.

Connolly and Calderin like to call themselves a nimble, locally based alternative in the New York-to-Washington corridor. Instead of "offshoring" software work to other countries, Anexinet builds "near-site" satellite centers to serve clients such as SEI Investments Co., Exelon Corp., and Independence Blue Cross.

Sharing doesn't mean duplicating efforts. There's a basic division of labor: Connolly handles sales. Calderin handles delivery.

"Major strategic decisions, we'll share," Connolly said.

Sun Capital Partners Inc., a private-investment firm in Boca Raton, Fla., has followed HIG Capital Management Inc., of Miami, in challenging Philadelphia's Versa Capital Management Inc. for control of Shapes/Arch Holdings L.L.C., one of South Jersey's biggest employers.

The Delair aluminum and plastics company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, citing a slowdown in home-construction and truck orders.

Shapes asked the court to bless a plan for Versa to take control of Shapes, after Versa promised to invest up to $25 million in the company.

But HIG and Sun, which also own aluminum companies and tried to buy Shapes before its filing, have challenged the Versa deal, saying they also want a crack at Shapes.

In court filings, Versa says it has kept Shapes going and saved 1,000 local jobs. HIG and Sun want the Versa plan stopped so they might make higher offers that would reduce creditors' losses.

What's that make this fight? The workers' friend vs. the creditors' best hope?

What Dan Werther learned as an operative in Philadelphia native Ron Perelman's vast, debt-funded business empire he's putting to work with his own Werther Partners L.L.C.

What did he learn from Revlon Inc.'s deal-making owner? "First, how to close a transaction," Werther said. "You think you know that when you're a lawyer, but you don't really know it till you are doing it for your own account.

"Second, how to organize and operate a company. Perelman's an owner-operator, a private-equity firm. You own the business, you run it, you know it."

Werther Partners closed its first deal last week when it bought Northeast Philadelphia sugar-free-candy marketer Sorbee International Ltd. Sorbee licenses Kraft Foods Inc.'s brands for sugarless candies from the Stone family, owners of mouthwash-maker Medical Products Laboratories Inc.

A Cheltenham High-Swarthmore-Temple Law grad, Werther joined Perelman's Toy Biz Inc. in 1994, during Perelman's long fight for control of Marvel Comics. After a dot.com stint at GVOX, a musician-oriented file-sharing system that "needed broadband before broadband became available," Werther in 2000 joined Perelman's Mafco Worldwide Corp., of Camden, pushing licorice extract.

Last year, Werther helped Susquehanna Investment Group, the giant Bala Cynwyd stock-and-options trader, acquire natural-cereal-maker U.S. Mills Inc., of Needham Heights, Mass., before striking out on his own.

Center City has 10,700 hotel rooms, up 4,000 since the mid-1990s, thanks to tax breaks and the Convention Center, city urban-design specialist David Schaaf told the city Planning Commission at last week's meeting.

There are eight hotels with 1,400 more rooms approved for construction, and there will be room for them all. And 1,100 rooms will be created once the Convention Center expansion is done, Schaaf said.

Philadelphia draws small and midsize boutique hotels, not resort-style giants. Under construction right now: the Four Points, 1201 Race St., 92 rooms; Hotel Palomar, 117 S. 17th St., 235 rooms; Le Meridien, in the old YMCA, 202 rooms.

See Schaaf's report on these and other, more speculative hotel plans at

» READ MORE: http://www.planphilly.com/files/HotelSlides_0.pdf

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