Old Ties May Have Been Useful in Fiserv and CheckFree Merger

On Thursday morning Fiserv announced that it would acquire CheckFree for $4.4 billion (see article at Portfolio.com).  The lucrative deal is expected to make Fiserv the largest provider of electronic financial services. We decided to investigate how relationships may have played a role in making this merger happen by quickly constructing an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map, uncovering any “buried” relationships between these two companies,  and discovered a longtime connection that could have influenced the negotiation of a partnership.

Thomas C. Wertheimer (a director at Fiserv) and Samuel R. Schwartz (CheckFree’s Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer), may have known each other through Coopers & Lybrand. Both served at Coopers & Lybrand since 1973, and in 1998, the Company merged with Price Waterhouse to form PricewaterhouseCoopers. Wertheimer and Schwartz have since left Coopers, but not before their time together at the firm reached seventeen years. Almost two decades at the same company likely gave them the opportunity to interact, with contact that could have extended even after both departed Coopers. If this is the case, then it’s probable that Fiserv and CheckFree drew on this relationship when contemplating a merger.

A second relationship worth mentioning is shared between Thekla R. Shackelford and William P. Boardman, who previously served together as board members of Bank One Corp. William is now a director at CheckFree and Shakelford served as a director of Fiserv for ten years, but left her post at Fiserv in 2004. Most of Fiserv’s current board members began their terms well before Shackelford’s departure, so discussions she may have had with any of them regarding her ties to Boardman likely would have been taken into consideration towards developing a bid for CheckFree.

Click here for an interactive version of this IntelellectSpace Knowledge Map (Internet Explorer Browsers Only): http://nv.intellectspace.com/ispace/GuestMonitor.aspx?id=078c66f2-a725-4e45-a684-360f0c82fc66