Another step in the ediscovery market consolidation

This announcement by FTI consulting adds another chapter to the consolidation wave in the ediscovery services segment. FTI is set to buy Attenex for 88$ million. This will roughly value Attnex at 3.5 as price to earning ratio. This is lower than what the ediscovery space norm is. Metalincs had 8-16x price to earning ratio. Stratify had 5-6x. Zantaz had 3.75. Guidance and Commvault trade on stock exchanges at 4-6x.
This may mean that the smaller ediscovery vendors that miss the consolidation bus might be at further risk of being devalued.