The purchase by Wafra Partners, a private equity group based in Kuwait, of Freedom Scientific, which sells the market-leading JAWS screen-reader, is causing some fear among advocates for the blind.
Blind Confidential investigated and got a cool reaction from Freedom employees:
Communication with the FS rank and file has resulted in people telling BC sources, “we were brought into an ‘All Hands’ meeting and told that the company had been sold,” but no Freedom personnel is saying to whom the company may have been sold and details like the selling price remain undisclosed. Some FS employees have grumbled that their stock options turned out to be worthless but no one seems to know the threshold above which the company had to sell in order for the employees to make some money on the deal.
Much of the fear resulted from Wafra pulling the announcement from its Web site, although a cached copy was then printed by Desert Skies.
No price was mentioned in the release, nor was there any other
information which might be deemed sensitive. As this was written
Freedom was also not yet listed among Wafra's portfolio companies. A press release has also yet to be issued by Freedom Scientific.
Blind Access Journal also has a cached copy of the Wafra release, which was dated April 25.
This kind of event is very disquieting, but it is increasingly common among companies of all sizes. Private equity groups, which keep their investors and their investments secret, are grabbing big hunks of the U.S. corporate marketplace. Whether they will eventually fall under some scrutiny and regulation is unclear at this time.
But if the customers have anything to say about it, they should.
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