Software services group SoftwareONE has announced an initial public offering on the SIX Swiss Exchange this year, taking advantage of a hot Swiss stock market.
The expanding company, which has 5,300 staff, is expected to be valued at several billion Swiss francs. The broad Swiss Performance Index shows stocks are up around 25% this year.
Headquartered in Stans, Switzerland, SoftwareONE helps companies manage an estimated €10bn in software assets, purchased from the likes of Microsoft, Adobe and IBM.
The company said its gross profit rose to 724m Swiss francs (€663m) in 2018, up from 571m Swiss francs in 2016, and that the adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 33% from 17% over the same period.
“SoftwareONE is well placed to further capitalise on the ongoing digital transformation trend and underlying market growth,” the company said in its IPO announcement.
The IPO will consist of secondary shares, with the firm’s founders retaining the largest stake and financial investor KKR - which bought a 25% stake in the firm in 2015 - retaining “significant interest”, said SoftwareONE. SoftwareONE chairman Daniel von Stockar and KKR will remain on the board of directors after the float.
Earlier this year, SoftwareONE enhanced its software asset management portfolio with the acquisition of the SAMSentry technology, owned by Milton Keynes, UK-based Infraware.
The acquired product dashboard is used by hundreds of companies to manage their software and business applications, the UK Department for Education, Pilkington, HomeServe and Trenitalia among them.
Last year, SoftwareONE acquired global IT service provider COMPAREX from Raiffeisen Informatik GmbH. That deal led to SoftwareONE helping customers optimise and manage the estimated combined €10bn in software purchases.
