Software AG USA Planning to Acquire IDS Scheer

The U.S. subsidiary of Germany’s largest software company, Software AG, announced July 13 that it will acquire German business process management consultant IDS Scheer for $21 per share.
Software AG USA, based in Reston, Va., said that it has already agreed to buy out IDS Scheer’s two biggest shareholders-co-founders August-Wilhelm Scheer and Alexander Pocsay, who together own 48 percent, or about 15.3 million shares, of the company’s stock.
The offer represents a 39 percent premium to Monday’s closing price of $15.10. The total purchase price would be more than $670 million.
Revenue for IDS Scheer was $558.1 million for 2008.
The combination of Software AG USA and IDS Scheer “will create a global vendor of infrastructure software and business process management with more than 6,000 employees and more than $1.39 billion in sales,” a Software AG USA spokesperson said.
Software AG, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, is an international-class vendor specializing in data center middleware. If the transaction with the U.S. subsidiary is completed, it will be augmented by IDS Scheer’s well-respected consulting skills to produce improved software that analyzes and maps business processes.
IDS Scheer also has a large partner network and service presence with about 7,500 customers.
Formerly Connected with SAP
IDS Scheer is, or was for a large part of its history, nearly synonymous with SAP, the major German competitor to Software AG. The two companies started working together about 22 years ago, when IDS Scheer’s business process modeling software worked with SAP’s R/3 software.
Several years ago, the two companies announced that SAP would integrate IDS Scheer’s Aris process modeling platform into its NetWeaver integration platform.
In the past, August-Wilhelm Scheer said he would not sell his company, but he told a German magazine last year that he might if it could not retain profitability.
In the past several years, IDS Scheer had broadened its horizons, bringing in a number of partners on the platform front, such as Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, BEA and Fujitsu.