France’s Schneider Electric will take a 60% stake in an enlarged industrial software business worth about GBP£3 billion (US$3.9 billion) after agreeing to combine with Britain’s Aveva at the third time of asking.
Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman and CEO of Schneider Electric, said the combined company would be better placed to serve a wide range of industries and its enhanced capacity would also benefit investors.
Completion of the deal, due around the end of the year, will mark the end of independence for the last US$1 billion-plus tech company founded in the English university city of Cambridge, an area known as “Silicon Fen”.
The British company’s chief executive James Kidd said he was confident the merger would get over the line this time after two failed attempts to do a deal since 2015.
“We are in a much further progressed position than we’ve been before; we’ve signed a binding merger agreement with Schneider,” he said in an interview.
Aveva’s products are used to design and manage oil rigs, ships and chemical plants, while the French multinational spans electrical components, energy management and industrial automation systems.
Full Content: CNBC
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