Like many business deals, this one started on a golf course. Last January, Doug Mitman and John Beagle, founders and managing directors of the Milwaukee-based investment banking firm Grace Matthews Inc., and their mutual friend V. Miller Newton, a software industry executive who served previously as chief executive officer of Monster Worldwide Inc., took their annual golf trip to Las Vegas.
While playing the links and having dinner, they talked about Newton’s future. At the time, he was CEO of Netkey Inc., an East Coast management software development firm. Netkey was in the process of a sale, and Newton was thinking about his next endeavor.
“We knew that he was close to selling Netkey,” Beagle said. “And we all thought it would be great to get him back to the Midwest.”
A few weeks after the trip, the conversation between the friends turned into a viable plan, after Beagle had lunch with Tim Kennedy, former president and chief operating officer of PKWare Inc. Beagle learned that PKWare, a Milwaukee-based compression and encryption software firm, was up for sale.
By August, their plan paid off when PKWare was purchased by the Canadian private equity firm Novacap Technologies and the Chicago finance firm Maranon Capital LP.
Newton was named the company’s CEO.
With its new ownership group and a leader with significant experience in building companies in the technology field, PKWare is positioned for significant growth. Newton and his management team predict the company will double its revenues in the next four years.
“I’ve done the math and science here – looking at alternative distribution systems and packaging our solutions in vertical markets, in a 3½ – to four-year period, when there is an 18-percent annual compound growth rate in the security markets – I think we can do better than average market growth,” Newton said.
To read more about the acquisition and growth plans for PKWARE in BizTimes Milwaukee, click here.
