Advised Software AG on its acquisition of IDS Scheer, a provider of Business Process Management (BPM) software, solutions and services

Arma Partners is pleased to announce that it acted as exclusive financial advisor to Software AG (XTRA: SOW) on its proposed €487 million acquisition of IDS Scheer AG (XTRA: IDS). Software AG’s all-cash offer price of €15 per share represents a premium of 39% to IDS Scheer’s prior day closing price. Under the terms of the contract signed on 13 July 2009, the Founders, Prof. Scheer and Prof. Pocsay, have undertaken to sell their 47.7% stake in IDS Scheer AG as part of a voluntary public tender offer, to be launched by Software AG starting this quarter.

The transaction will create a global enterprise software vendor with more than 6,000 employees and over €1 billion in sales. Software AG’s strengths ‚Äï technology leadership in infrastructure software, blue-chip customer base, financial stability and global presence ‚Äï will complement IDS Scheer’s product leadership in business processes, strong partner network and large service delivery footprint with approximately 7,500 customers.

IDS Scheer also offers deep industry expertise, direct customer access across multiple verticals and a strong position in SAP consulting services. The consulting, implementation and delivery expertise of IDS Scheer will enable Software AG to deploy customer-specific Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Business Process solutions to capture a larger share of its customers’ IT spending.

Complementary product portfolios, delivery models and value chains for the digitisation of business processes will be a unique value proposition in the global market. The combined company will drive growth through accelerated sales of the joint product offering, enhanced market access and consultancy expertise across verticals. The merging of the two successful business models is expected to be accretive to Software AG’s earnings within the first twelve months of consolidation.

This is the second transformational transaction on which Arma has worked with Software AG, having also acted as exclusive financial advisor on their acquisition of webMethods, Inc. (NASDAQ: WEBM) in April 2007.