Data management company Acxiom Corp. has accepted an offer from ValueAct Capital and Silver Lake Partners to be taken private and acquired for $3 billion. Each Acxiom share will be worth $27.10 and both Silver Lake Partners and ValueAct Capital (Acxiom's largest shareholder) will assume $756 million in debt.

At a news conference held to discuss the acquisition, Acxiom CEO Charles Morgan said he expected Acxiom to be able to thrive as a private company; noting the benefit of not having the pressure of answering to the analyst community that public organizations regularly face. Morgan also noted that the new owners' resources would also help Acxiom grow its business. It appears those new owners are very eager to do just that.

According to news reports, ValueAct's co-founder Jeff Ubben has spent the last two years on a mission to buy Acxiom. ValueAct was once a major shareholder in OneSource and tried to take the company private before OneSource was acquired by infoUSA. So the announcement of this deal really isnt surprising. It seems it was just a matter of time before ValueAct closed this particular deal or another involving a prominent data company. (The Acxiom acquisition is expected to become official within the next few months). It will be interesting to see how ValueAct and Silver Lake's enthusiasm will translate into a better Acxiom.

On demand global meeting solutions provider StarCite Inc. this week announced its acquisition of Travent Limited, EMEA, an enterprise meeting management and global technology solutions based in the U.K. The deal will help StarCite achieve its goal of global expansion as it inherits customers and employees in Europe as a result.

Travent brings a variety of corporate customers into the fold, including Pfizer and HRG and will likely help StarCite increase its international revenues even more. According to the company press release announcing the Travent acquisition, StarCite's international revenues are growing and almost 20 percent of the company's business is being conducted outside the U.S.

The end result: a broader base of customers will be able to take advantage of StarCite's online marketplace geared toward corporate meeting planners. These customers can source, bid, book and manage all of their external corporate meetings with just one solution. Before the acquisition, StarCite had a product that positioned the company for future growth as it addressed a growing customer need-tools that integrate into the workflow. Now, it's got a more diverse and robust customer base to serve. If this deal is a success, StarCite probably won't waste much time identifying acquisition targets in other regions.