– Corporate customers’ increasing demand for service companies to supply them in several countries, together with the healthy growth rate of the European services market were said to be the drivers behind the merger announcement between Finland’s Tieto Corporation and Sweden’s Enator AB. The resulting company goes by the name of Tietoenator, and has a market capitalization of some 2.9bn euros ($3.15bn), of which roughly 70% is Tieto, according to the Finnish company’s chief financial officer, Tuija Soanjarvi. That said, the two are roughly equal in terms of revenues, with the Swedish company actually leading somewhat, while the Finn is more profitable.
– SunGard Data Systems Inc agreed to acquire Israeli company Oshap Technologies Ltd in a share exchange transaction worth around $210m. Oshap is an Israeli-based group of technology firms which owns a 98% holding in financial systems middleware company Mint Technologies Ltd and a 77% stake in Decalog NV, a provider of portfolio management and decision support applications for asset managers. In conjunction with the acquisition of Oshap, SunGard says it will offer to acquire the minority interests of both Mint and Decalog.
– AT&T Corp became the largest cable operator in the US after finally closing its $55bn deal to acquire Tele-Communications Inc (TCI). The deal creates a communications giant as AT&T is already the country’s largest long distance carrier, the largest international carrier and largest wireless operator. With the TCI network, it re-enters the local telephony market with its own facilities for the first time since it was split up in 1984.
– 3Com Corp moved quickly to complete its acquisition of NBX Corp, an Andover, Massachusetts-based voice over IP company. Plans for the acquisition, valued at $90m, were announced at the end of last month. 3Com says it will take a one-time charge for in-process technology during its fourth fiscal quarter. The charge is expected to be less than 20% of the purchase price, said 3Com.
– Even before its flotation on the Frankfurt stock exchange, due to take place in the second quarter, German software giant Software AG has started buying companies, as it promised to do after its listing. The first in the series, for an unspecified sum, was Paris-based IT services company Goal Technologies, with the acquisition backdated to January 1 of this year. A spokesperson for Darmstadt based Software AG explained that Goal has some software of its own – namely an object library and an integration package which supports its services offering – but that its primary focus is that of a services company.
– Oracle Corp has purchased Concord, Massachusetts based, E- Travel Inc, a provider of on-line corporate travel management systems, for an undisclosed sum. Under the structure of the deal, the database giant said it has incorporated E-Travel as a separate business unit within Oracle and all the company’s management team will retain their current positions. John Wookey, Oracle’s VP of financial applications said the Redwood Shores, California-based software vendor will integrate E-Travel’s flagship web-based, travel arrangement product of the same name, with its own travel, expenses and reimbursement solution and rename the application Oracle eTravel.
– Parametric Technology Corp acquired Auxilium Inc, a Mendota Heights, Minnesota-based applications integration firm, for $79m. Privately-held Auxilium’s web-based software provides access to and integration of data from business information systems, including enterprise resource planning, product data management systems and legacy data.
This article is part of ComputerWire’s M&A Impact information service. Some articles from the service are being provided to Computergram subscribers for a trial period only.
