Please post here if you know the current Sales status of Baan. Is it been sold or any one bidding ?

Invensys to divest Baan, most Energy Management units
Control Engineering
By Staff
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
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London, U.K.-- To focus more closely on automation and controls and pay off existing debt, Invensys plc announced April 15 plans to divest Baan and most of its Energy Management division units, which represent about $4.58 billion in annual sales. The businesses slated for sale during the next 18-24 months include Baan, product-based Appliance Controls, Climate Controls, Metering Systems, APV Baker, Powerware, Lambda, Teccor and Hansen Transmissions. They will be managed in an expanded Development Division until they are sold.

Invensys plans to retain its Production Management division companies, including Foxboro, Triconex, Wonderware, Eurotherm, APV Solutions & Services and SimSci-Esscor. IMServ and certain data management technologies in the Energy Management division also will be added to Production Management, while Invensys Rail Systems will be kept and operated separately. Invensys' new ArchestrA industrial software framework will be deployed throughout its remaining units.

"Our strategy remains the same. We're not just playing to compete. We playing to win," says Sasan Goodarzi, president of Invensys Manufacturing and Process Solutions. Mr. Goodarzi told Control Engineering on April 22 that its latest divestiture will allow it to retire debt, improve credit ratings, lower its cost of borrowing, and invest more in current businesses, with internal development and strategic acquisitions.

Mr. Goodarzi adds that he and Invensys' other leaders will remain, including Rick Haythornthwaite, Invensys' ceo, Leo Quinn, Invensys Production Management's coo, and Mike Bradley, Invensys Wonderware/ArchestrA's president. Invensys will provide more details about its plans when it releases full-year results on May 29. Please visit http://controleng.com for more information.

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Baan users will be keeping a sharp eye on the outcome of the sale of the ERP supplier by parent company Invensys in the coming days.

The company, which is being sold for about £70m, was subject to offers from a number of bidders at the time of going to press. These were reported to include ERP supplier SSA GT; Vanenburg, a firm headed by former Baan chairman Jan Baan; and venture capital group Texas Pacific.

Baan has a significant presence in the UK manufacturing sector, with customers including BAE Systems, Del Monte and Ellis & Everard. The sale of Baan should go some way to easing users' uncertainty over whether their core software systems will be developed further.

Nigel Montgomery, an analyst with AMR Research, said, "Invensys never got to grips with Baan - it was always a difficult company to manage - and for the past year it has suffered more harm than good. As long as a buyer intends to move the product forward, rather than simply stripping assets, the sale will be a good thing.

"What users should particularly watch out for is whether their reseller intends to stick with Baan. A lot of resellers gained up to 70% of their revenue from Baan implementations but diversified when the company hit problems."

After a collapse in sales around the time of the Invensys acquisition in 2000, Baan's management team stabilised the company and it has won a number of new customers in recent months.

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Invensys PLC (U.IVS) expects to enter into exclusive negotiations for the sale of its Baan software business as soon as this weekend, a person close to the company said Wednesday.

The person, who requested anonymity, told Dow Jones Newswires that discussions were "moving apace" for the sale of the software business. Baan was officially put up for sale along with Invensys' core energy management division in April, but is believed to have been marketed to potential buyers before then.

The source said a decision to enter exclusive negotiations with one bidder from a narrowed field of three trade and financial candidates would be made within the next two days. Among the finalists is U.S.-based private equity company Texas Pacific Group (TPL), the source said. He declined to be drawn on the identities of the other two bidders.

A spokesman for Invensys declined to comment.

Texas Pacific Group officials weren't immediately reachable for comment at their Ft. Worth, Texas headquarters.

Baan has been losing money for Invensys almost the entire time since it was acquired in 2000 for about GBP470 million. However, its Gemini Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, product is seen as a valuable asset, particularly to software companies that are looking to acquire proprietary technology.

Many software companies, including the likely buyer of Baan, have been on the acquisition trail with the support of venture capital partners.

A London-based analyst knowledgable about developments at Invensys said the latest talk of an imminent sale of Baan "dovetails with something I've been hearing."

The analyst, who also requested anonymity for himself and his bank, said he believes one of the favored bidders is a medium-sized European ERP software maker that has made acquisitions in northern Europe in the past with support from a venture capital partner. But he declined to identify the name of the company.

The analyst said that despite Baan's current loss-making status, it could fetch around GBP80 million, based on a valuation of around five times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

However, the analyst said "the big unknown is the pension liability," which could be as high as GBP900 million for Invensys as a whole, a portion of which could be transferred to any buyer of Baan.

Indeed, Deutsche Bank has a negative value of GBP100 million for Baan to reflect retained liabilities and warranties, and the assumption that any buyer will demand a dowry.

While admitting this valuation is "fairly extreme," Deutsche Bank analyst Peter Reilly says "if (Invensys) can get short of it for any kind of positive price I'll be pleasantly surprised."

Invensys, meanwhile, will be under pressure to show progress on its latest restructuring plan when it reports on May 29 fiscal results for the year ended March 31. The company, which has made a series of profit warnings over the past year due to weak markets for its products, is expected to report further losses for the year after a previous restructuring plan failed to stem the flow of red ink.

The company was unable to provide an average estimate of analyst forecasts.

Invensys said in April that operating profit before exceptional items and goodwill amortization for the latest year would be around GBP250 million, down from reported core group operating profit of GBP311 million. The company also said it would also eliminate its 1 pence final dividend for the year.

In 2001, Invensys swung to a net loss of GBP869 million before dividends from a restated GBP70 million profit the previous year.

Analysts say Invensys' chief executive, Rick Haythornthwaite, will also be eager to shore up the company's weak share price and signal to investors that the company is turning the corner through a quick sale of Baan.

"The rest of the crap in my sector has moved and this hasn't," said one analyst.

Around 1122 GMT, Invensys shares were down 1 pence, or 6.3%, at 15 pence. A year ago, the shares were trading around 113 pence.