Oracle to buy Aconex

Oracle Corp. agreed to buy Aconex Ltd, an Australian company that makes cloud based collaboration software for construction projects, for 1.56 Australian Dollar cash as it tries to gain more customers in the rapidly growing market.

Redwood City, California-based Oracle has been looking to refashion its business around internet-based products. The strategy was dealt a setback last quarter when cloud-computing sales missed analysts’ estimates. The company also gave a disappointing forecast for cloud growth in last week’s earnings report, which sent shares falling the most in three months.

Oracle has been turning to acquisitions to accelerate its shift to the cloud, including last year’s $9 billion purchase of NetSuite Inc. This marks Oracle’s second acquisition of a cloud-based construction software maker so far. Last year, it purchased contract and payment management platform Textura for $663 million and combined it with its own construction management software, called Primavera, to form the Oracle Construction and Engineering Global Business Unit.

Founded in 2000, Aconex currently has offices in 30 countries and says it has been used to manage over $1 trillion in construction projects. The company claims 5.5 million project users, who can manage and communicate about building progress, documents, safety checklists and other issues on desktops or mobile devices. 

Altran to buy US group Aricent

Altran, a global leader in Engineering and R&D services has entered today through its subsidiary Altran US, into a definitive agreement to acquire Aricent, a global leader in design and engineering services, from a group of investors led by KKR, for a total enterprise value of USD 2.0 Billion in an all cash transaction.

Aricent is a global digital leader in integrated design and engineering services, primarily serving clients of the Communications and Technology, Semiconductor and Software industries. Headquartered in Santa Clara (California), Aricent brings design and engineering capabilities to help its clients get to market faster, transform legacy products to digital, and create new revenue opportunities.

Aricent also has solid experience in shaping large engineering outsourcing deals and key capabilities in key emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Systems, and Internet of Things and software frameworks. Over the LTM June 2017, Aricent generated revenues of $687m with ca. 10,500 employees and operated through 24 engineering centers and design studios, serving ca.360 clients globally.

This acquisition is expected to generate €150 million of additional revenues translating into €25 million EBITDA run-rate synergies and €25 million of delivery and cost synergies. These synergies are expected to be delivered progressively within 3 years, with implementation costs representing close to 1 year of cost synergies, to be spread over 2018-2019. The deal is expected to be EPS accretive from year one, and double digit accretive when taking into account run-rate synergies.