Siemens Acquires Industrial Simulation Software Co. Altair Engineering in $10 Billion Deal
Siemens has acquired Troy, Michigan-based Altair Engineering, a provider of software in the industrial simulation and analysis market, in a deal valued at roughly $10 billion.
With the acquisition, Siemens strengthens its position as a leading technology company and its leadership in industrial software, the company said.
"Acquiring Altair marks a significant milestone for Siemens," Roland Busch, president and CEO of Munich, Germany-based Siemens AG. "This strategic investment aligns with our commitment to accelerate the digital and sustainability transformations of our customers by combining the real and digital worlds. The addition of Altair's capabilities in simulation, high performance computing, data science, and artificial intelligence together with Siemens Xcelerator will create the world's most complete AI-powered design and simulation portfolio."
Siemens' industrial software business, Siemens Digital Industries Software, is based in Plano—and should see significant impact from the acquisition.
"Today's agreement to acquire Altair constitutes a major milestone for Siemens Digital Industries Software," Timo Nentwich, EVP and CFO of Siemens Digital Industries Software, wrote on LinkedIn. "This acquisition confirms our position as leader [in] Industrial Software and will enable us to provide an even more comprehensive offering to our customers. I am truly excited for all the talents, products, and capabilities to join our organization."
Boosting Xcelerator, Siemens' digital-twin platform
By adding Altair's highly complementary simulation portfolio, with strength in mechanical and electromagnetic capabilities, Siemens said it is enhancing its comprehensive Digital Twin to deliver a full-suite, physics-based, simulation portfolio as part of Siemens Xcelerator. Altair's data science and AI-powered simulation capabilities allow anyone, from engineers to generalists, to access simulation expertise to decrease time-to-market and accelerate design iterations, Siemens said.
Altair's data science capabilities also will unlock Siemens' industrial domain expertise in product lifecycle and manufacturing processes, the company added.
"It's a logical next step: we have been building our leadership in industrial software for the last 15 years, most recently, democratizing the benefits of data and AI for entire industries," Ralf P. Thomas, CFO of Siemens AG, said in a statement. "The acquisition of Altair is highly synergistic, underpinning Siemens' stringent capital allocation, balancing investments and shareholder returns on the basis of a strong balance sheet. The transaction is expected to be EPS accretive two years post-closing."
Combining 'complementary leaders' in engineering software
Altair founder and CEO James Scapa said the acquisition is a major step for his company.
"This acquisition represents the culmination of nearly 40 years in which Altair has grown from a startup in Detroit to a world-class software and technology company. We've added thousands of customers globally in manufacturing, life sciences, energy and financial services, and built an amazing workforce, and innovative culture," Scapa said in a statement.
Scapa noted that the two companies' strengths go together well.
"We believe this combination of two strongly complementary leaders in the engineering software space brings together Altair's broad portfolio in simulation, data science, and HPC with Siemens' strong position in mechanical and EDA design," he said. "Siemens' outstanding technology, strategic customer relationships, and honest, technical culture is an excellent fit for Altair to continue its journey driving innovation with computational intelligence."
Siemens said the acquisition will be fully cash-financed from its existing resources and its capacity to fully finance the transaction based on Siemens' strong balance sheet, as underlined by its exceptional rating, which Siemens said it is committed to maintain. The closing of the deal is expected within the second half of 2025.
Founded in 1985, Altair Engineering is a global leader in computational science and artificial intelligence (AI) that provides software and cloud solutions in Simulation and Analysis, Data Science and AI, and High-Performance Computing, enabling organizations across all industries to compete more effectively and drive smarter decisions in an increasingly connected world. Altair Engineering Inc. went public in 2017 and is headquartered in Troy, Michigan.
Altair said that out of its more than 3,500 employees, roughly 1,400 of them work in R&D.
