There seems to be no let up in the ERP vendor consolidation trend. The latest target is Geac Computer Corp., a software provider, based in Canada, with a broad portfolio of applications, including its SmartStream financials system, which it picked up in 1996 from Dun & Bradstreet, and its System21 ERP suite, a well-regarded (at the time) process industry system, which Geac picked up in its acquisition of JBA in 1999.
Geac is now being acquired in a friendly transaction by Golden Gate Capital, the investor firm behind Infor, which has been on its own acquisition binge for several years. Golden Gate will pull Geac's ERP offerings, such as System21, Runtime, RatioPlan, Streamline, and Management Data, and will move them to Infor as part of Infor's application portfolio.
What happens to the rest of Geac? Golden Gate plans to create a new company--separate from Infor--to manage these products, including Geac's Enterprise Server, SmartStream, Anael, Extensity and Comshare products. The CEO of the new company will be named prior to closing the transaction.
After picking up a string of acquisitions, most recently Lilly Software Associates and MAPICS, it's hard to know what to think about Infor's roll up program. I'm hoping to get some more information later this week.
There's a long press release on the deal--which is quite complicated--on Infor's web site.
Related posts
Intentia, MAPICS, SSA, and Geac--what's the deal?
Second thoughts on Geac and Intentia
Agilisys continues acquisition binge
Infor acquires process ERP vendor, IncoDev
Agilisys changes name to Infor Global Solutions
Agilisys acquires Infor
2 comments:
Interesting. Could be good for System21 to be owned by an ERP business - I think Geac just wanted the maintenance revenue and perhaps the customers who could be sold other stuff. Maybe Infor will actually do something with it.
From what I know of Infor, along with all the Analyst comments, this should be great for Geac. Infor seem to tbe the only big enterprise company with a true Assembler model (as opposed to Consolidator.)
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