there is a wedding in the air in the it sector French. Capgemini, the giant consulting and it services, announced on Monday evening its acquisition of Altran Technologies, a company of engineering services and research and development. The transaction amounted to 3.6 billion euros, before taking into account the net financial debt of Altran, valued at 1.4 billion euros. It is carried out in the framework of a public purchase offer (OPA) friendly, validated unanimously by the boards of directors of both companies. Capgemini has also clarified that it had already signed an agreement for the acquisition of a block of 11% of the capital of Altran with shareholders through the investment company Apax Partners.

At the conclusion of the merger, the two companies believe that they will form a group turnover of 17 billion euros, and employing more than 250,000 employees around the world. Capgemini, which has celebrated in 2017, in its fifty years, is the first French company of services of digital, and one of the world leaders in the sector. Its turnover amounted to 13.1 billion euros in 2018. The annual revenue of Altran, them, amounted to $ 2.9 billion last year.

To justify the operation, Capgemini has highlighted the complementarities of its services with those of its new partner. "Complementarity and the power of our expertise are major assets," said Paul Hermelin. "This acquisition will allow us to become a strategic partner to our clients, to enable them to take full advantage of the deployment of the cloud, the internet of things, the Edge computing [a type of hosting data and especially used in factories connected, editor's NOTE], of the artificial intelligence and the 5G." The two companies also highlight their future combined expertise in the "industry smart", which consists of the accompaniment of the industrial actors in their digital transformation.

Capgemini and Altran are now awaiting several regulatory approvals before completing the acquisition. It applies in particular to the CFIUS, responsible for analyzing business acquisitions in the United States, where Capgemini has recently placed a hand on the company LiquidHub.