Altran buys Telecoms R&D services business in China

Global engineering and consulting firm Altran has recently acquired the Telecoms and R&D services business of Beyondsoft in China. With the addition of the telco business unit, Altran grows its Chinese team to roughly 800 professionals.

Following a number of years of successful co-operation, Altran and Beyondsoft last year (June 2013) set up a joint-venture (JV) in China. The joint entity, known as ‘Altran-Beyondsoft’, delivers R&D services in the field of Connectivity, Electronics, and Software Engineering, mainly to clients in the Telecom and Automotive sectors.

Following another 14 months of collaboration, and growing demand for telecom engineering and advisory services*, Altran has now decided to purchase the Telecom business unit from Beyondsoft, one of Asia's leading full-spectrum IT services and industry solution providers. The acquisition will be completed through a capital increase in the joint venture Altran-Beyondsoft, raising Altran’s stake from 51% to 70%.

“400 engineers and their management team will join the existing joint venture organisation, which now has almost 550 employees and will continue to deliver services for international clients in China in the field of Intelligent Systems,” writes Altran in a press release. With the addition of the telco business unit, the French based firm’s employee base in the country rises to nearly 800.

Buy-side advisors
During the M&A process Altran was advised by Grant Thornton (Financial Due Diligence) and local law firm Zhong Lun (Legal Counsel and Legal Due Diligence).

* The Chinese Telecommunication & Connectivity market is made of over 1 billion mobile phone subscribers. In addition, China has over one of the world’s largest installed base of smartphones, tablets and connected devices.