Epiq's Expensive E-Discovery Deal

By Brenon Daly

Announcing the largest e-discovery deal in some three-and-a-half years, Epiq Systems (EPIQ) said earlier this week that it will borrow $100m to acquire Encore Discovery Solutions, a service provider for law firms. (My colleague Nick Patience has the full details on the acquisition.) The rationale is fairly straightforward: Epiq wanted to shore up its presence in the western US, so it reached for Phoenix-based Encore. That sort of geographic consolidation happens all the time – but it rarely happens at the kind of valuation that Epiq is paying in its services play.

Encore