Enea divests its Nordic consulting business
Enea has entered into a binding agreement to divest the Swedish consulting companies in Stockholm, Lund and Linköping to Xdin AB, the Swedish subsidiary to Alten Group, a leading global technical consulting company, based in Paris, France.
”The divestment is part of our strategy to focus on our global software business.”, says Anders Lidbeck, President and CEO for Enea. “The local consultancy business in Sweden differs significantly from our global software business. By divesting this unit we are refining Enea’s business and get the opportunity to invest in areas such as Linux, realtime operating systems, hardware environments and product related services. We want to become the world leader for operating systems to the wireless broadband industry. That is a market where a large technology shift is taking place and thereby opening up good possibilities for us. But to succeed, we need to focus our investments to this area. With this divestment we can do exactly that.”
The divested business includes 228 employees and approximately 90 subcontractors, which represents just over half of Enea's overall consulting business. The combined revenue of the Nordic consulting units is approximately SEK 300 million. The consulting business unit, which includes Nordic consulting, reported an operating margin of 3.3 percent for the first nine months. The Nordic consulting units have knowledgeable technology consultants with specialist skills in areas such as embedded systems, test and quality assurance for the telecommunications and defense industries, all of which are well in line with Alten Group’s business.
"I am convinced that Alten Group is a great partner to our current consulting customers and a good employer for our consultants. ", Lidbeck continued. "We will cooperate with Alten to ensure long-term continuity for our joint customers.” As part of the agreement Enea has agreed to purchase consulting services at market rates from Alten Group during the coming year. “It is important for us to safeguard certain competence during a transfer period. It secures our ability to deliver large projects and will become a good complement to our own product related knowledge. This is a good deal for everyone involved; our customers, our employees and our shareholders.”, Lidbeck concludes.
Enea will focus on operating systems solutions. Enea has the building blocks to deploy an entire system solution featuring Linux, realtime operating systems and hardware environments. For the major customers Enea delivers integrated, customized solutions to help them build world leading products. Enea will continue to offer services such as training and product related consulting services through their consulting units in Phoenix (USA), Bucharest (Romania) and Beijing (China). After the divestment, Enea will have 400 employees in nine countries.
The purchase consideration for the shares in Enea Services Stockholm AB, Enea Services Öresund and Enea Services Linköping AB amounts to app. SEK 140 million with no cash and no-interest-bearing liabilities. The divestment is expected to lead to a capital gain in accounting terms of approximately SEK 66 million. Final settlement of the purchase price will be based on companies' audited financial statements for 2011 and is expected to take place during the second quarter of 2012. The divestment will increase Enea’s cash flow with approximately SEK 135 million in the first and second quarter.
The acquisition is expected to be closed during the first quarter of 2012.
For more information on Alten, visit www.alten.com
For more information on Xdin, visit www.xdin.com
For more information on Enea, visit www.enea.com