Much more to come on this, but news broke earlier today that, pending regulatory approvals, Hexagon will acquire Infor’s EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) business, for approximately $2.75 billion in cash and newly issued securities. That’s not this year’s largest PLMish deal, but it is certainly up there — and I think it’s Hexagon’s largest acquisition to date (after paying just over $2 billion for Intergraph a decade ago).

You may recall that a subsidiary of Koch Industries acquired Infor last year; this starts to divide up that asset and establishes what the companies are calling a Strategic Alliance to resell, cross-sell and otherwise work together to “accelerate cross-selling of complementary solutions across common customers in markets such as automotive, discrete manufacturing, and public safety.”

But back to Hexagon and EAM. Infor’s EAM is a SaaS-based asset management offering that is used to track assets, and plan and execute maintenance tasks to optimize operations. According to the press release, Infor EAM is “highly scalable and easily configurable to meet the needs of specific verticals, such as mass transit, food and beverage, facilities management and much more”. According to Hexagon CEO Ola Rollén, “Hexagon’s decision to acquire this business is a strong endorsement of our mission to put data to work to enable autonomous, connected ecosystems that boost efficiency, productivity, quality and safety for our customers … By integrating Infor EAM’s built-in, industry-specific asset management capabilities with our digital reality solutions and platforms, we can improve capital asset performance in ways beyond what EAM can achieve standalone – from enhancing predictive maintenance and reducing energy usage to supporting other sustainability initiatives. Infor EAM customers and partners can expect a smooth transition with significant synergies that will produce faster growth and greater opportunities, including expansion into new verticals as well as underserved markets such as Asia Pacific.”

Hexagon says that the Infor EAM business is forecasted to have revenue of $184 million in 2021, as it continues to drive customers to a SaaS business model. That makes this transaction have a hefty 15x revenue multiple. But it does appear to be a profitable and growing business: Hexagon said SaaS is expected to be over 40% of revenue in 2021 (and over half of software revenues) and has been growing at a 3-year compound annual growth rate of 35%.

A few of the details: Hexagon will pay $800 million in cash and issue series B shares to Koch to cover the rest of the purchase price. After the transaction, Koch will own 4.9% of the equity in Hexagon and will become a “long-term, active shareholder in addition to the business partnership.” The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.