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Deals: Brinker adds BizEquity; eLocal-Ring Router; Ocwen sets PHH date; AES buys ARM; Malvern drops on $25M sale; Anaplan IPO

Home loan, energy mergers; bank, business software share sales

Ocwen

-Brinker Capital, King of Prussia, says it is investing an undisclosed sum in BizEquity, a Wayne-based firm which calls itself "the world's largest online business valuation service." The buyer will add BizEquity to its wealth management and financial-advisor service units, said Noreen D. Beaman, chief executive at Brinker, in a statement. Brinker manages $23 billion in client assets. The combination will help BizEquity reach more customers, said BizEquity founder Michael M. Carter in a statement.

-eLocal, a Conshohocken provider of "performance-based advertising," says it has agreed to buy Ring Router, a Pasadena, Calif. provider of "performance-based advertising in the form of pay-per-call programs" for national insurance companies and independent agents. The firm sells "pay per call" and "pay per lead" sales leads for "the home services, legal, debt and addiction sectors. "We are excited to build upon Ring Router's strong foundation within the insurance marketplace," said eLocal chief executive Bruce Aronow.

Brett Sweeney, head of business development at Ring Router, will continue to lead the business, which will now comprise eLocal's new insurance division. Backed by Philadelphia-based investment firm LLR Partners since last year, eLocal is looking for more firms to buy.

-PHH Corp., a mortgage servicing company which employs 1,345 (Updated), mostly at its Mount Laurel headquarters, will become part of Ocwen Corp., on Thursday, before the stock market opens, PHH said in a statement Monday. Former PHH boss Glen Messina will head the combined company.

Ocwen is a debt-collection company based in Atlanta, which has been buying and collecting on loans from bank portfolios since its founding in 1988. The name Ocwen was chosen under founders Ron Faris and William C. Erbey because it spells "New Co." backwards.

Ocwen last winter agreed to buy PHH's shares from public investors for $360 million, or $11 a share. That's down from PHH's highs in the low $30s in 2007, before the financial crisis constricted the home-loan business and PHH was forced to settle fair-lending cases with state and federal regulators.  Both companies have been criticized for their loan-servicing practices.  PHH has been unprofitable in recent years and has sold its vehicle-leasing unit and other operations.

Applied Energy Systems, a Malvern company that designs, builds and installs "high-purity gas systems" including the Semi-Gas and Versa-Gas brands, says it has agreed to buy another gas purification systems maker, Advanced Research Manufacturing Inc., Colorado Springs,  for an undisclosed sum.

Advanced Research clients include computer, energy, medical and drug companies and other industries. Applied Energy general manager Jim Murphy called ARM products "a natural extension of our equipment offerings." ARM technology director Brian Warrick said the combined companies could add new products more rapidly.

-Shares of Malvern-based Malvern Bancorp Inc., which has seven branches in suburban Philadelphia and outposts in North Jersey, Palm Beach and Delaware, slipped 7 percent in today's trading session, to around $22, a seven-month low, after the company said it was planning to raise $25 million in a new share offering to boost its capital, "fund future organic growth." and maybe buy another company, though it has no specific plans.

-Anaplan, San Francisco, plans to raise up to $233 million in an initial public stock offering and list shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "PLAN."

The fast-growing, not-yet-profitable, cloud-based business-planning software maker, which claims clients including VMware, Hewlett-Packard and Coca-Cola, competes with Oracle, Salesforce and SAP.

Anaplan's "global customer officer" is South Philly native and Villanova grad Paul Melchiorre, a former manager at Ariba Networks until SAP bought that company in 2012. Melchiorre later headed Exton-based insurance software maker iPipeline through its 2015 sale to Chicago investment firm Thoma Bravo. Melchiorre left Philly and followed Anaplan to California because that's where most of the funders that backed the company with $100 million in a 2014 capital-raising are based.