Blackboard To Buy Elluminate And Wimba

(RTTNews) – Blackboard Inc. (BBBB: News ) said it agreed to acquire both Elluminate Inc. and Wimba Inc., two of the leading providers of synchronous learning and collaboration technology to the education markets, for a total of about $116 million in cash, excluding transaction costs and subject to certain adjustments.

These leading teams and solutions together will form Blackboard Collaborate, the newest standalone platform in the Company’s family of education solutions.

Together, Elluminate and Wimba serve more than 2,600 institutions in the U.S. K-12, U.S. higher education, international and professional education markets.

Blackboard expects the transaction to be accretive in 2011 by about $0.05 to full year earnings on a pro forma non-GAAP net income per share adjusted basis excluding the impact of purchase accounting adjustments on deferred revenue and non-recurring merger-related costs.

The company expects the acquisitions to contribute about $30.0 million to Blackboard’s full year 2011 GAAP revenue and the company expects the acquisition to be dilutive to full year 2011 by approximately ($0.25) to GAAP net income per share and by approximately ($0.05) to non-GAAP net income per share.