Notable Mergers and Acquisitions of the Day 03/06: (ABC) (NCT) (EBTX)

• AmerisourceBergen Corp. (NYSE: ABC) has signed a definitive agreement to purchase World Courier Group, Inc., a privately held leading global specialty transportation and logistics provider for the biopharmaceutical industry, for $520 million in cash. The purchase price is subject to a customary working capital adjustment.
  
  The acquisition is expected to be neutral to the Company’s fiscal year 2012 earnings, and $0.06 to $0.10 accretive in fiscal 2013. The transaction is subject to certain regulatory reviews and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2012, which ends June 30, 2012.
  
  
• Newcastle Investment Corp. (NYSE: NCT) has signed definitive agreements to acquire an approximately 65% interest in Excess Mortgage Servicing Rights from Nationstar Mortgage LLC in connection with their acquisition of mortgage servicing assets from Aurora Bank FSB, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Bancorp Inc.
  
  Newcastle expects to invest approximately $170 million to acquire an approximately 65% interest in the Excess MSRs. Nationstar will be the servicer of the loans and will invest alongside Newcastle by acquiring the remaining approximately 35% interest of the Excess MSRs. The unpaid principal balance of the total portfolio is expected to be approximately $63 billion at closing and be comprised of approximately 75% non-conforming loans in private label securitizations and approximately 25% conforming loans in GSE pools. The investment is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012 and is subject to regulatory and third-party approvals.
  
  Under the terms of this investment, to the extent that any loans in this portfolio are refinanced by Nationstar, the resulting mortgage servicing right will be included in the portfolio, subject to certain limitations. This should serve to significantly reduce the impact of prepayments on our investment. Newcastle will not have any servicing duties, advance obligations or liabilities associated with the portfolio.
  
  
• Cadence Bancorp, LLC announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Encore Bancshares, Inc. (Nasdaq: EBTX) in an all-cash transaction.
  
  Under terms of the definitive agreement, Cadence will pay $20.62 per share, or approximately $250 million for the approximately 12.1 million outstanding shares of Encore, equating to 2.4x price to tangible book value multiple. Certain members of the Board of Directors of Encore have provided proxies in support of the transaction.
  
  The transaction has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies and is expected to close during the second half of 2012. The transaction is subject to customary conditions including shareholder and regulatory approvals.

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