Lawson Software Inc. has announced plans to acquire Intentia International in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $480 million. Upon completion of the transaction, the company will operate under the name Lawson Software with U.S. headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., and international operations headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.
The transaction will create a new company with more than 3,500 employees serving approximately 4,000 customers in 40 countries with business applications for the services, manufacturing, distribution and maintenance sectors spanning multiple industry categories.
“This is not a typical software consolidation,’ claims Richard Lawson, chairman of the board, Lawson Software. “This is a combination of equal companies that has tremendous growth potential in the enterprise software market. We are very excited about going forward as a unified organization with a strong financial position and strong balance in our customers, people, products, industry markets, and geographies."
“To help our customers with their purchasing decisions of either the Intentia or Lawson platforms or applications, we are committed to providing new releases, enhancements and support for our core products for at least five years,” says Romesh Wadhwani, chairman of the board, Intentia. “Because there is little product and geographic overlap, the new company can retain our service and support organizations for our existing products with no disruption. We can be a single-source supplier to our customers offering them a broader range of industry-specific ERP applications.”
Lawson and Wadhwani will serve as co-chairmen of the new company. Jay Coughlan, president and CEO of Lawson, will be stepping down from his role and leaving Lawson after a transition period to be determined. He will be replaced by Harry Debes, who most recently was president and CEO of SPL Worldgroup.
The combined company will specialize in serving medium and large enterprises with a product portfolio that encompasses all core enterprise resource planning, performance management, supply chain and asset management applications. Lawson products focus on financial, human resources, procurement and retailing, while Intentia products focus on manufacturing, distribution and maintenance applications. As a result, the two companies have little overlap in products, customers, industry focus or geographies.
The company will provide solutions to serve a broad cross-section of industries. Intentia's industry-specific focus in fashion, food and beverage, wholesale, asset-intensive and manufacturing areas is complementary to Lawson's focus in healthcare, retail, government, education, and financial services. The combined company will have a balanced global presence with approximately 45% of the combined revenues from North America, 45% from Europe and 10% from the Asia-Pacific region.
Lawson reported revenues of $364 million in the fiscal year ended May 31, 2004, and Intentia reported revenues of approximately $406 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004.
