Amber Road (NYSE: AMBR), a leading provider of global trade management
(GTM) solutions, announced today that it has acquired ecVision,
a cloud-based provider of global sourcing and collaborative supply chain
solutions for brand-focused companies.
ecVision helps many of the largest brand companies in the world to
effectively manage their relationships with product suppliers, raw
material vendors, product testing and social compliance audit firms, and
global logistics companies. Driven by the need to get the right products
to market faster and respond to ever shortening ‘seasonal’ cycles,
retail brand companies must collaborate with their suppliers and tier-n
material vendors to speed innovation and manage product compliance with
fine-tuned control over costs.
“U.S. and European-based brand companies are under constant pressure to
bring new products to market faster,” said Kevin O’Marah, Chief Content
Officer at SCM World. “It’s all about accelerated merchandise innovation
and rapid, profitable execution. More effective collaboration with
Asian-based manufacturers is key to that equation. Where ecVision helps
drive these benefits on the front end of the process, Amber Road picks
it up at point of shipment to ensure compliant, cost-effective global
delivery to the brand or retailer. It’s a very synergistic union.”
The ecVision
Suite currently focuses on the following four primary business areas:
-
Vendor and Production Management – allows global brands to
efficiently on-board new suppliers, monitor capacity, manage purchase
orders and raw material orders, as well as monitor production status.
-
Material and Product Management – helps brands, their suppliers
and tier-two material suppliers to collaborate and deliver more
innovative products, by efficiently managing the sampling and testing
processes, planning, forecasting and reserving raw materials and
sourcing finished good production.
-
Risk and Quality Management – helps to ensure that what is
produced meets international regulatory testing requirements, brand
specifications and social compliance standards with comprehensive
functionality to manage component and product testing, auditing and
finished goods quality inspections.
-
Shipment and Logistics Management - provides a platform to
document, manage and monitor all logistics activities from in-factory
carton label creation, advanced shipping notice generation, carrier
booking and tracking, and invoicing through receipt into the warehouse.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, with company-owned operations in China and
the U.S., ecVision has automated the collaboration between brand
companies and their suppliers in over forty countries under a SaaS
business model with long-term subscriptions. Representative ecVision
customers include Li & Fung, PVH Corporation, Coach, Brown Shoe Company
and VF Corporation, with underlying brands such as Calvin Klein,
Timberland, The North Face and Tommy Hilfiger, among many others.
“This acquisition delivers value for Amber Road customers by providing
new global supply chain capabilities to increase product innovation
while balancing product compliance risks and costs with shorter product
lead times,” said Jim Preuninger, CEO of Amber Road. “It expands our
solution footprint by providing more services at origin, where the
global supply chain begins, and strengthens our value proposition in key
industries. This combination extends our leading presence in the Asia
Pacific region which continues to be a strong growth market for us.
Finally, this union gives us another significant differentiator in the
marketplace. We believe Amber Road is the only international
cloud-based supply chain vendor offering such an expansive suite of
capabilities.”
“We’ve seen an increased focus on trade compliance and global logistics
on the part of our customers over the past few years,” said Thomas Ng,
Founder and CEO of ecVision. “Combining these capabilities with our
platform in a fully integrated fashion will be a real game-changer.
We’re delivering on a vision for retail that has long been aspirational
but never realized. We are also very excited to expand our sales and
marketing reach by leveraging Amber Road’s larger and more established
presence across North America and Europe. I look forward to joining the
Amber Road senior management team and executing on our combined vision.”
Under the terms of the transaction, Amber Road has acquired ecVision for
a net cash amount of approximately $24 million, as well as up to $9
million over the next two years providing for an earn-out provision
based upon achievement of certain revenue milestones and employee
retention. The transaction is being financed with cash on-hand and a new
$20 million term loan with KeyBank N.A. The Jordan, Edmiston Group, Inc.
served as financial advisor to ecVision in this transaction.
Conference Call Information
Amber Road will host a conference call on Monday, March 2, 2015 at 5:00
p.m. Eastern Time (ET) to discuss the acquisition of ecVision, including
the expected financial impact. To access this call, dial 888-417-8533
(domestic) or 719-325-2452 (international). The conference ID is 9309570.
Additionally, a live webcast of the conference call will be available in
the “Investor Relations” section of the Company’s web site at www.AmberRoad.com.
Following the conference call, a replay will be available at
877-870-5176 (domestic) or 858-384-5517 (international) from March 2,
2015, 8:00pm EST to March 9, 2015, 11:59pm EST. The replay pass code is
9309570. An archived webcast of this conference call will also be
available in the “Investor Relations” section of the company’s web site
at www.AmberRoad.com.
About ecVision
ecVision offers a cloud-based supply chain collaboration platform that
optimizes product lifecycle and supply chain processes. The enterprise
platform, ecVision Suite™, reflects the standardized business processes
from design to delivery, creating a single collaborative solution for
private label brands, retailers and their trading partners. With
increased visibility and workflow, users can improve their reaction time
to demand changes, shorten product lifecycles, lower product and
materials costs, and improve sourcing and logistic efficiencies. Learn
more at www.ecvision.com.
About Amber Road
Amber Road’s (NYSE: AMBR) mission is to dramatically change the way
companies conduct global trade. As a leading provider of cloud based
global trade management (GTM) solutions, we automate import and export
processes to enable goods to flow across international borders in the
most efficient, compliant and profitable way. Our solution combines
enterprise-class software, trade content sourced from government
agencies and transportation providers in 145 countries, and a global
supply chain network connecting our customers with their trading
partners, including suppliers, freight forwarders, customs brokers and
transportation carriers. We deliver our GTM solution using a
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and leverage a highly flexible
technology framework to quickly and efficiently meet our customers’
unique requirements around the world.
For more information, please visit www.AmberRoad.com,
email Solutions@AmberRoad.com
or call 201-935-8588.
Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These
statements, including statements regarding our ability to integrate
ecVision, identify substantial risks and uncertainties and relate to
future events or our future financial performance. In some cases, you
can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,”
“will,” “could,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,”
“believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” or “continue,” and
similar expressions, whether in the negative or affirmative. These
statements are only predictions and may be inaccurate. Actual events or
results may differ materially. In evaluating these statements, you
should specifically consider various factors, including the risks
outlined in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), including, without limitation, our periodic and current SEC
reports. These factors may cause our actual results to differ materially
from any forward-looking statement. Although we believe that the
expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable,
our future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements may
differ from our expectations. Other than as required by law, we do not
undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date
of this press release, even though our situation may change in the
future.
Copyright Business Wire 2015