SAN FRANCISCO—Simulation software provider Ansys Inc. said Tuesday (May 29) it signed a definitive agreement to acquire France-based Esterel Technologies SA, a provider of embedded software simulation tools for mission critical applications, for about $53 million in cash.
Ansys (Pittsburg) said the deal calls for retention provisions for key members of Esterel's management and employees and is expected to close in the third quarter. The purchase price, about 42 million euro, is subject to working capital adjustments at close, Ansys said.
Esterel is headquartered in Elancourt, France. The company has about 80 employees and reported revenues of approximately 15 million euro (about $18.7 million) for fiscal year 2011, Ansys said.
Esterel's SCADE software enables software and systems engineers to design, simulate and produce embedded software. The company claims its tool is often chosen when the embedded software is critical for safety and compliance reasons. The company's certified code generators are compliant with more than 10 certification standards including aerospace, defense, rail transportation, automotive, industrial systems and nuclear plants.
Ansys said the acquisition of Esterel complements its software tools by extending its vision to encompass both hardware and software systems. The company last year
acquired EDA vendor Apache Design Solutions Inc. for $310 million in cash."Today's products are getting smarter," said Jim Cashman, president and CEO of Ansys, in a statement. "They have more electronics and software and this requires a systems engineering approach to product development. The combination of these two great companies will uniquely enable customers to comprehensively simulate complete systems and predict with confidence that their products will thrive in the real world."
Cashman said Ansys believes the combination of the companies will "foster innovation by gaining engineering insight across disciplines that have historically been silos."
Ansys said the two companies are developing integration plans.