NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Lexmark International Inc. are higher by 5.49% to $43.03 in mid-morning trading on Wednesday, after it was announced that the imaging solutions and services and perceptive software company will acquire Kofax Ltd. in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion. "The acquisition of Kofax enhances our best-in-class offerings so our customers can capture, manage, access, and act upon their information more efficiently, and extends Lexmark into the high-growth smart process applications market. Our customers will have a breadth of hardware and software solutions that connect their information silos and automate their business processes - enabling them to access the most relevant information at the moment they need it to drive business forward," Lexmark CEO Paul Rooke said in a statement. Lexmark will purchase all of Kofax's outstanding shares for $11 per share in cash. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2015. By adding Kofax to its business Lexmark will immediately enhance its enterprise content management and business process management offerings, the two companies said. "The acquisition of Kofax demonstrates the continued execution of Lexmark's capital allocation framework, which is to pursue acquisitions that strengthen and support the growth of Lexmark's solutions capabilities, while returning capital to shareholders," the statement went on to say. For more on this topic click here. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates LEXMARK INTL INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate LEXMARK INTL INC (LXK) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed-some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and expanding profit margins. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: LXK's revenue growth trails the industry average of 31.7%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 2.0%. This growth in revenue does not appear to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, displayed by a decline in earnings per share. Despite currently having a low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, it is higher than that of the industry average, inferring that management of debt levels may need to be evaluated further. Regardless of the somewhat mixed results with the debt-to-equity ratio, the company's quick ratio of 1.12 is sturdy. Net operating cash flow has decreased to $188.10 million or 10.59% when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, when comparing to the industry average, the firm's growth rate is much lower. The share price of LEXMARK INTL INC has not done very well: it is down 9.69% and has underperformed the S&P 500, in part reflecting the company's sharply declining earnings per share when compared to the year-earlier quarter. Looking ahead, other than the push or pull of the broad market, we do not see anything in the company's numbers that may help reverse the decline experienced over the past 12 months. Despite the past decline, the stock is still selling for more than most others in its industry. You can view the full analysis from the report here: LXK Ratings Report Must Read: Warren Buffett's Top 25 Stocks for 2015
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