Product category:
PLM and collaboration software
News Release from: SSA Global
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 06 June 2003
Invensys sells off Baan
Invensys has agreed to sell Baan to an investment group consisting of Cerberus Capital Management and General Atlantic Partners, two of the world's leading private investment firms.
Invensys has agreed to sell Baan to an investment group consisting of Cerberus Capital Management and General Atlantic Partners, two of the world's leading private investment firms Backed by nearly US $14 billion in investment capital, the investment group plans to employ a growth-oriented long-term strategy to the Baan business
Over the next several months the group, which also owns SSA Global Technologies, intends to combine Baan with SSA GT.
SSA GT is a leading provider of enterprise solutions for process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, consumer, services and public companies worldwide.
With nearly $600 million in combined revenues, of which $160 million represents licence fees for the combined products, and in excess of 16,500 customers the new company will have the world's largest installed base in manufacturing.
Key to the growth strategy will be the total iBaan suite and the complete set of product offerings of the combined organisation.
Baan will operate globally as the Baan division of the combined entity with dedicated sales, marketing, development, consulting and support.
Over the past three years Baan has made significant investment in its solution offerings including its next generation enterprise backbone code-named 'Gemini' and its innovative integration platform, OpenWorldX.
Gemini will be launched this fall at Baan World User Conferences in the USA and Europe, with a launch in Asia Pacific planned for the first-half of 2004.
Additionally, Baan gained 52 new name customers last quarter while also achieving record levels of customer satisfaction, a fact confirmed by research organisation Dataquest-IDC.
"The strength of Baan's solutions, loyal customer base, and dedicated employees has provided a foundation for an accelerated investment decision by Cerberus and General Atlantic", said Laurens van der Tang, President of Baan.
"We have established a customer-driven company that is well positioned for growth as we begin the second 25 years of Baan".
"Adding Baan to our investment portfolio is an opportunity for General Atlantic to provide strategic value", said William E Ford, Partner, General Atlantic Partners.
"Having had previous experience with Baan we are excited about the combination of Baan and SSA and the new company's potential to assume a market leadership position".
The following individuals will join the Baan advisory board: Peter Korteweg - former CEO of Rebeco Group and former Chief Civil Servant of the Netherlands Finance Ministry and advisor to Cerberus Capital Management, and Loek van den Boog - Chairman of Meta4, former Sr Vice President EMEA for Oracle and special advisor to General Atlantic Partners.
"Baan has invested a lot in developing the next generation ERP systems with a current architecture and richer functionality.
This will provide a viable migration path to many of SSA GT's other customers as they look to upgrade their ERP systems over the next 2-3 years", said John Bermudez of AMR Research.
Mike Webb, Sr VP of Information Technology at Flextronics had this to say about the announcement: "The financial backing brought by Cerberus and General Atlantic, the improved scale of a combined Baan and SSA, as well as Baan's industry defining Enterprise Application Solutions should continue to serve Flextronics and Baan's other customers extremely well".
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