Fujitsu Services is looking to expand further in Scandinavia with a take over bid for Swedish IT services firm Mandator.
Fujitsu Services, one of Europe’s leading IT services companies, offered an SEK 508 million ($78 million) bid for Swedish IT firm Mandator AB on Monday 8th October.
The price of SEK 3 in cash per share equates to a 30% premium to the 10 day volume-weighted price of Mandator shares. The Mandator Board of Directors unanimously recommended shareholders to accept the offer saying in a statement that the merge “would provide Mandator with further opportunities for increased revenue and profitability through Fujitsu Services’ established international platform and complementary product and service offering”.
Katarina Mellström, Chief Executive Officer and Group President in Mandator, added “I see considerable potential in being able to bring together Mandator’s competences with Fujitsu’s international credibility which will bring exciting opportunities for both our employees as well as for our customers”.
If the offer is accepted, Fujitsu will become the sixth largest IT services company in Sweden. Mandator has more than 560 employees, of which 390 are based in its domestic market in Sweden, 100 at a near-shore delivery centre in Estonia and the remainder in the UK and Denmark.
Mandator provides systems integration, project management, application development and testing services primarily to the manufacturing and telecom industries and the public sector. Clients include global brand names; Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Volvo and Sandvik. In 2006 sales amounted to approximately SEK 493 million and the operating profit to approximately SEK 27 million.
Fujitsu Services is a leading European IT services company that provides a range of IT solutions to private and public customers across Europe, including retail, financial services, healthcare and government. Key services include IT service management, IT consulting and IT outsourcing. With headquarters in London, Fujitsu Services employs over 19,000 people in 20 countries and has an annual turnover of £2.46 billion (€3.59 billion).
Full details of Fujitsu Services’ offer can be found at http://uk.fujitsu.com/offer