Semcon and Caran create one of the world’s largest technical consultancies

Semcon has today agreed with the JCE Group about acquiring 100 per cent of the shares in Caran AB, Caran Design Limited, A2 Acoustics AB and Caran Embedded Intelligent Solutions AB. The takeover is expected to be carried out on 1 September 2007.

The purchase price is SEK 335 million, the same price that the JCE Group paid when it acquired the companies from WM-data. The acquisition will give rise to goodwill of around SEK 280 million.

The companies taken over have sales of around SEK 900 million and 1,000 employees. Sales for the first six months amounted to SEK 447 million with an operating profit of SEK 29 million. Following the takeover the new Group will have an estimated sales figure of SEK 3,400 million a year and a headcount of 3,800 in 15 countries on five continents.

The new Group will be one of the world’s largest suppliers of technical development services to the automotive industry, both for cars and trucks, and can well meet the demands placed by our global clients. The automotive industry today is faced with extensive development projects with intensive demands on new models and platforms. We now have even greater opportunities of being part of the major development assignments that companies outsource to their partners.
The Caran acquisition also means that we expand our services to the engineering industry, where we will be one of the biggest in the Nordic region.

The strategy behind the Caran acquisition, and previously IVM Automotive, is to create a larger global business, partly to gain larger and more complex technical assignments and partly to be on-site where our clients are.

“It’s a fantastically exciting challenge to have the chance of creating a global, technical consultancy, based in Sweden,” says Semcon’s Chairman, Kjell Nilsson.

Synergies and savings
The deal also includes major opportunities for savings, including through utilising the possibilities that joint IT systems and premises give. Semcon and Caran’s businesses will be co-ordinated in various places, including Sweden and the UK. The total savings are estimated to be around SEK 40 million and the deal will have a positive effect on results in 2007.