Fortis Inc. bought UNS Energy: Continuous consolidation in Energy Sector

Canada based international diversified electric utility holding company, Fortis Inc. has announced the acquisition of UNS Energy (fka Unisource Energy Corporation) , parent company of Tucson Electric Power and Unisource Energy Services.

Fortis Inc. was formed in 1987 after spun-off from transmission and distribution utility Newfoundland Light and Power Co. With in past couple of years company has announced two big shot acquisitions, namely Central Vermont Public Service in May 2011 worth $700 million and CH Energy group in February 2012 worth $1.5 billion.

Tuscon Electric Power is an electric utility company serving Southern Arizona in United States.  The acquisition  will not impact the operations of the two mentioned subsidiaries of the parent company UNS Energy.  UNS has consolidated assets of $4 billion and its both mentioned subsidiaries serves 412,000 and 242,000 customers respectively across the state.   

Fortis inc is supposed to inject $200 million in the company to improve its balance sheet.  It will also help in the future planned purchase of Unit 3 at natural gas fired Gila river power plant. UNS is slowly moving away from coal power utilities to gas power and has investment plans in same field.

 As per the deal Fortis has acquired UNS for $4.3 billion.  The deal will let Fortis acquire debt of $1.8 billion all outstanding common stock for $60.25 per share.  The common equity price mentioned for acquisition is 31% premium to the closing price of day prior to acquisition.  After the deal UNS Energy stock price rose to $58.91 i.e. 29% rise, biggest gain in past 20 years.  While on other side Fortis share price fell by 3.4%.

Omnicell Inc. to acquire SurgiChem Limited for GBP 12 million

Omnicell Inc., a Mountainview based leading provider of medication and supply management solutions to healthcare systems, has announced the acquisition of SurgiChem Limited, a provider of medication adherence packaging systems and solutions across United Kingdom.

SurgiChem is based in Stockport and has 21 employees.  Company is  a wholly owned subsidiary of Bupa Care Homes plc.  It provides medication adherence packaging systems and solutions across the country.  Bupa is an international healthcare group serving over 14 million customers across 190 countries. It has 62,000 employees across various countries.  

Omnicell's medication automation and analytic solution has been used by over 2,700 customers worldwide.  It helps in reducing errors, improving operational efficiency, deliver actionable intelligence and improve patient safety.  Its MTS Medication Technologies brand is a non-acute care solution.  It helps pharmacies to maintain high accuracy and quality standards in medication dispensing and administration.  

As medication non-adherence is a major healthcare problem across the countries.  As per Omnicell's management both companies' products are complimentary to each other.  Therefore, both products will be bundled together, to reduce medication errors and lower costs by effectively managing adherence.  

Square acquires Ex-Googler's Photo sharing app developer ViewFinder

California based Square Inc., a merchant service aggregator and mobile payment company, has announced the acquisition of two Ex-Googler's photo sharing application start-up Viewfinder.

Viewfinder is a photo sharing platform that enables people to organize, share and relieve their most loved memories with their loved ones and so.  Company was founded in 2012 and is based in New-York.  It was founded by Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis, former ex-Googlers, and are known to develop GIMP in 90's.  The photo sharing application of viewfinder was part social and part utility based.  Application followed a "jump-scroll" type interface, which helped users easily search their own photo history.

Viewfinder team will now work from Square's New-York office.  Square is expecting to triple the size of engineering team by end of 2014.  As per Square's CTO Bob Lee, he personally know both co-founders of Viewfinder when they were working for Google Inc.  As per the same update of Square, complete team of Viewfinder is very talented with a personal experience touch present.

Viewfinder team will work on "Seller-Initiatives" out of New-York office, possible the newer seller initiative "Seller Market", a way to shop online from local stores.  It may see a new app soon, with viewfinder team in development.

As of now Viewfinder app will be running but no new updates will be released.