Schneider Electric SE, France, already owns 59.14% of Aveva’s shares. As of now, Schneider is to buy out minority shareholders in Aveva Group Plc, England, and will pay about $4.3 billion for the remaining equity. After the deal is completed, Schneider’s CEO, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, will gain full control of an asset. This helps Schneider to accelerate plans to move power plants and factories its customers own onto more digital services by selling software that increases efficiency and reduces energy use.
Schneider, at first, got a majority stake in the Aveva company in 2017 and took control over Aveva. Schneider is a French company that specializes in energy management and digital automation. Aveva provides utilities, oil and gas producers, transportation companies as well as other companies with software tools. Aveva becomes the latest tech company in the UK to be taken over by a foreign company. Previously, in 2020, Aveva bought Osisoft, a SoftBank-backed industrial software maker. “While Schneider has majority ownership already and did appoint the current CEO, Aveva performance has been slightly inconsistent and Schneider management may see benefits from total control especially in terms of strategy alignment and speed of action,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Fielding.