Ties Between 3Com and Bain Prove Beneficial

University ties may have been significant on Friday as 3Com Corp agreed to sell itself to Bain Capital Partners LLC and Huawei Technologies Co for $2.2 billion (see article from MarketWatch.com). We created an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map to determine if any relations existed that could have played a role in this deal and discovered that the corporate network equipment maker and the private equity firm have ties through Stanford University and Stream Holdings Inc.

3Com President and CEO Edgar Masri and Bain Director Armando Sada can be connected through the Stanford Graduate School of Business where both earned MBAs. Sada is also currently a Member of the Business School Alumni Association. It is most likely that both men know of each other and/or have overlapping alumni and business contacts.

Another noteworthy connection is shown through Stream Holdings Inc. Robert Dechant, Senior Vice-President and General Manager at 3Com, was a former SVP and COO at Stream Holdings where he worked alongside Mark Nunnelly, who was a Director at the time and is currently a Director at Bain.

These connections could have been important in the initial discussions regarding a deal between 3Com and Bain.

Click here for an interactive version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map (Internet Explorer browsers only): http://nv.intellectspace.com/ispace/GuestMonitor.aspx?id=b5ab09ae-1d55-4b5f-8d8c-3b358398873e