Trimble buys German logistics software company for $2B

WESTMINSTER — Industrial technology company Trimble Inc. (Nasdaq: TRMB), which this year moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to the Boulder Valley, will spend €1.88 billion, or nearly $2 billion, to absorb German transportation-logistics software company Transporeon in an all-cash deal.

“Transporeon’s software platform provides modular applications that power a global network for 145,000 carriers and 1,400 shippers and load recipients with an integrated suite of best-in-class sourcing, planning, execution, monitoring and settlement tools,” the company said this week. “Trimble will acquire Transporeon from Hg, a leading software and services investor and majority shareholder in the business.”

Software investor Hg Capital paid less than $1 billion for Transporeon, which employs 600 people in nine global offices, in 2019, according to reports from European financial media outlets. 

The Westminster-based buyer said it believes that “Transporeon will be immediately accretive to Trimble’s revenue growth and margin profile, and has generated profitable growth over the past 15 plus years, through various stages of the economic cycle.”

Transporeon-driven revenues in 2023 are expected to be €190 million, representing 25% year-over-year growth. 

“Under the leadership of Stephan Sieber and the talented management team, Transporeon has exhibited rapidly increasing network density and an accelerating customer adoption curve. Its solutions are deeply integrated with carriers and shippers, and we are confident the platform will play an increasingly important role in the modernization of supply chains globally,” Trimble CEO Rob Painter said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to working together to enhance and expand on the company’s significant growth trajectory, and to offer enhanced [transportation-management software] platform solutions to Transporeon customers in Europe and to Trimble customers in the North American market.”

Last year, Trimble consolidated operations from Boulder and Englewood into its Westminster campus, located at 10368 Westmoor Drive in the Westmoor Technology Park. That campus is now the company’s corporate headquarters.

The Westminster location houses more than 1,000 of Trimble’s employees, its largest employment center in the U.S., according to information provided by the company.

The Westminster hub includes agriculture, construction and geospatial market segments.

“Colorado has proven to be a strategic location in our U.S. operations since we opened our initial Westminster office in 2000,” Rob Painter, Trimble’s president and CEO, said in a written statement. “The area attracts a desirable, diverse and growing pool of tech talent and provides an attractive quality of life for our employees.”

Trimble in May 2012 purchased SketchUp from Google Inc., and in September 2017 acquired Boulder-based supply-chain company 10-4 Systems. Both operations were located on Walnut Street in Boulder prior to the move to Westminster.

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