Monotype Is Weighing Options After Buyout Interest

(Bloomberg) -- Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., a developer of typefaces, is exploring its strategic options after receiving takeover interest from private equity firms, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The Woburn, Massachusetts-based company is working with a financial adviser to assist in its review, which could include a potential sale, the people said, asking not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

There is no guarantee that the discussions will result in a sale.

A representative for Monotype declined to comment.

Monotype’s shares rose as high as 9.2% Thursday in New York trading, their largest gain in more than a year. The stock was up 8% to $17.82 at 9:36 a.m., giving it a market value of $738 million.

The sales talks come a year and half since activist investor Starboard Value sold down its stake and ended its campaign for board seats. In January 2018, Monotype disclosed that it explored a potential sale and spoke to 28 potentially interested parties but received “no definitive offers.”

Monotype went public in 2007, a few years after it was formed when TA Associates acquired a unit of Belgian imaging company Agfa Gevaert NV. It has acted as a consolidator in the industry in recent years. It bought Olapic in 2016 for $130 million, but announced a restructuring of that business a year later and cut 80 jobs.

The company, which announced plans to replace Chief Financial Officer Anthony Callini this week, operates technologies designed to enable the display of digital text on electronic devices such as laser printers, mobile phones and televisions.

Monotype has a library of 10,000 fonts including famous ones such as Helvetica, according to its website.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kiel Porter in Chicago at kporter17@bloomberg.net;Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, ;Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Liana Baker, Michael Hytha

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