It’s finally done: Schneider Electric owns AVEVA

And so we have the final episode of this saga: AVEVA shares are no longer being traded on the London Stock Exchange today as the final step in the sale of AVEVA to Schneider Electric. The last trades yesterday put the closing share price at 3,220.50 pence (GBP 32.205) — very, very close to the 3,225 pence per AVEVA share that Schneider Electric will be paying shareholders of record starting today. That gave AVEVA a valuation of GBP9.86 billion.

This whole thing started years ago when Schneider Electric first sought to acquire AVEVA but really picked up steam in October when Schneider Electric made a cash offer for the roughly 40% of AVEVA shares it didn’t already own.

If you’ve been following along, you’ve seen AVEVA’s emails as each step in this convoluted process was completed — and here we now are. AVEVA shareholders should begin seeing settlement payments as early as today and, according to Schnider Electric, no later than February 1.

This is a good thing for Schneider Electric, which wants and needs to diversify into more software businesses –solid margins, repeatability via subscriptions, strategic relationships with customers– and gives AVEVA access to significant resources on a global scale. But I am a bit melancholy about it all. The big keep getting bigger and use their mass to dominate markets — there’s something to be said for the smaller vendors, agile and fighting to compete. Schneider Electric has said it will allow AVEVA to do its own thing – let’s hold them to that, shall we?

You can go here to see Schneider Electric’s filings and here to see AVEVA’s.