Buy, Wait 2 Months, Sell, Go to the Bank

That was Hale Capital Partners' recipe for success for its LocationLogic investment. The private equity firm acquired Autodesk's location services business in March using a relatively small amount of equity. Fast forward two months, TeleCommunications Systems (NASDAQ, TSYS), looking to grow its leading wireless location services business, offered $25 million, comprised of $15 million in cash and $10 million in TSYS stock. The offer was more than enough to generate a solid return for Hale Capital, which decided to sell the company despite such a short ownership time.

There have been 25 other proposed corporate acquisitions of private equity-owned companies in 2009, according to the PitchBook Platform. The biggest exit being GS Capital Partners and TPG Capital's sale of Alltel to Verizon Wireless for $5.9 billion. LocationLogic's sale makes Information Technology the second most active industry in sales to strategic acquirers, behind Business Products and Services, thus far in 2009. The pace of corporate acquisitions does not seem to be picking up, with 14 completed during the first quarter and 9 halfway through the second quarter.