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Keensight Capital supports Smile in planned acquisition of Open Wide

Open source solutions provider Smile is in exclusive negotiations to acquire Open Wide, a move that will broaden the Smile’s offering while strengthening its position in the open source sector.

European growth private equity investor Keensight Capital, the majority shareholder in Smile alongside Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (Cabestan), has been working with Smile’s management team since the end of 2013, particularly by guiding the company in successfully deploying its external growth strategy.
 
Founded in 2001, Open Wide has built a rosta of blue chip clients, including Airbus, Thales, Safran and Samsung. The company employs nearly 150 people though its operations in France and Luxembourg and generates annual revenues of around EUR15 million.
 
On completion of the acquisition, Smile’s employees will total around 1000, and its geographical scope will be broadened with the acquisition of two new sites in Toulouse and Luxembourg. The new entity will be present in nine different countries spread across 18 offices and will offer a comprehensive range of open source solutions across six business lines.
 
Philippe Crochet (pictured), Partner at Keensight Capital, says: “We are delighted to be supporting Smile in this new stage of its development. Through its positioning as European market leader, Smile is a natural consolidator of the open source sector, and the merger of its activities with Open Wide’s will generate significant synergies, from both a commercial and industrial perspective. The integration of complementary services offerings, as well as the arrival of Open Wide’s teams, will help give a further boost to Smile’s growth and strengthen its business activities with large French and international client accounts.”
 

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