SoftwareOne to buy Norway’s Crayon in $1.4 billion Microsoft-focused takeover

By Paul Arnold and Tristan Veyet

ZURICH (Reuters) -Swiss technology firm SoftwareOne said on Thursday it had agreed to buy Crayon Group in a stock and cash deal which values its Norwegian competitor at $1.4 billion.

Around 70% of the combined entity’s revenue would be related to business with Microsoft, Crayon CEO Melissa Mulholland said during a call on the deal.

SoftwareOne said in a statement it would launch a recommended voluntary offer to acquire all outstanding Crayon stock at 172.50 Norwegian crowns ($15.23) per share, a 36% premium to its Dec. 11 closing share price.

Shares in SoftwareOne, which are down by 60% year-to-date, were up 10.75% at 0946 GMT, while Crayon shares were 5.3% lower.

The combined company would have total revenue of around 1.6 billion Swiss francs ($1.8 billion) with a presence across more than 70 countries and about 13,000 employees, SoftwareOne said.

SoftwareOne did not give an outlook for the combination, but its finance chief Rodolfo Savitzky said a reference point was the Swiss firm’s 2026 guidance for an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 27%.

“The business combination sets the stage for any ownership scenario, and we will now focus our efforts on completing the transaction successfully and integration,” said Daniel von Stockar, chairman of the board of directors of SoftwareOne.

Von Stockar and two other founding shareholders ousted SoftwareOne’s board in April after a power struggle in which the trio last year tried to delist the company.

SoftwareOne, which already holds 1.9% of Crayon’s share capital, is valued at 10 Swiss francs per share in the share exchange, the companies said in a joint statement.

Crayon’s board of directors has unanimously resolved to recommend its shareholders accept the offer, they said.

The deal would trigger accelerated growth and improved profitability driven by run-rate cost synergies of 80-100 million francs within 18 months of completion, they added.

That is incremental to SoftwareOne’s previously announced cost savings of more than 50 million francs, as well as significant revenue synergies.

($1 = 11.3461 Norwegian crowns)

($1 = 0.9002 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Paul Arnold, Rachel More and Tristan Veyet; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Alexander Smith)