Hitachi Ltd said on Wednesday it will buy U.S. software company GlobalLogic Inc for $9.6 billion, including repayment of debt, as the Japanese industrial conglomerate pivots from electronics hardware to digital services. The deal is the biggest Japanese outbound acquisition of a U.S. hi-tech company on record, according to Refinitiv data.
The acquisition is part of Hitachi’s ongoing business portfolio overhaul, which includes the $7 billion acquisition of ABB Ltd’s power grid business last year and a series of divestitures of its domestic hardware subsidiaries.
San Jose-based GlobalLogic is currently owned 45% each by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Swiss investment firm Partners Group. The rest is owned by the company’s management. Founded in 2000, GlobalLogic has more than 20,000 employees in 14 countries and offers software engineering services to 400 active clients in industries including automotive, healthcare, and finance.
GlobalLogic’s expertise stretches from chips to cloud services and will extend the range of Hitachi’s own digital services business, company executives told a news conference.
Source: Reuters
Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Kim Coghill
