According to unofficial sources, Renault has now finalized its list of preferred ER&D service vendors, reducing it from nine vendors to four. The four winners are Akka, Bertrandt, Expleo, and Segula. They will now grab 80% of Renault’s ER&D spending and double their market shares.
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The Stock Market meltdown resulted in an unexpected outcome: Capgemini secured 98.2% of the shares of Altran, with investors rushing to get EUR 14.5 per Altran share. Capgemini will now launch a squeeze-out procedure.
Since we published our last note on the impact of Covid-19 on ER&D spending, the situation has changed with Covid-19, having now spread to Europe and soon the US. Already, The European Central Bank is predicting a GDP decline of 5% in 2020, based on the impact of three months of confinement.
Akka has not provided a guidance for 2020. The company expects to suffer in H1, from automotive, aerospace and Covid-19
The US Federal Reserve yesterday lowered “the target range for the federal funds” by 50 bps to 1%-1.25%. Although the “fundamentals of the US economy remain strong,” “the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity,” communicated the Fed.
Currently, Covid-19 has only affected China significantly, although having spread in South Korea, Japan, and Northern Italy.
Several ER&D vendors have been impacted so far: Ricardo has warned that the situation in the Chinese automotive market would have a “material” effect on its profit.
Bertrandt had a soft quarter in Q1 FY20 (corresponding to calendar Q4 2019): revenues were flat (+0.4%) to EUR 263m, impacted by project delays, and reduced utilization rates in its Digital Engineering (DE) unit (-3.0%). DE, Bertrandt’s largest unit (55% of revenues), suffered from Germany OEMs shifting their R&D spending to digital.
Alten’s revenues in Q4 slowed down to a growth of +7.3% yoy (at CC/CS ), following double-digit CC/CS growth during Q1-Q3 2019. The company suffered from a demanding comparison basis (+13.7% in Q4 2018), and one lesser working day in several countries (a 0.15% impact on the group’s revenues).
The industry loves to talk about convergence, especially between ER&D and IT services. As an industry analyst, I must say that I have never seen such porosity between IT service and ER&D services vendors.
Wipro announced a mild growth in the revenues of its Industrial and Engineering (I&E) business unit in Q3 FY20: I&E revenues were up by 3.1% only (to USD 151m). Revenues included a small contribution from the recent ITI acquisition and were impacted by the market conditions in the semiconductor industry and softness in 5G adoption.
We are expecting a slowdown in ER&D spending in 2020. Learn more here.
We don’t usually comment on the financial performance of ER&D service vendors beyond their financials. But this time, this is a little bit different: Akka Technologies raised yesterday EUR 175m in convertible bonds, a significant amount for Akka, which has a market cap of EUR ~EUR 1.2bn.
Capgemini’s acquisition of Altran will be delayed by up to six months. Edge Fund Elliott has, through intermediaries, brought, the case to court. The initial ruling on December 4 will decide if the acquisition will be suspended. A final ruling will occur by end of the March at the latest.
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EDAG’s financial performance in Q3 2019 was very similar to that of Q2: revenues were down
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Altran’s CC/CS revenue growth in Q3 2019 reached +6.0%, to EUR 779m. The company slowed down somewhat from Q1: +8.1%, and Q2: +6.8%, despite the improvement in its operations in North America.
ÅF Pöyry’s revenue growth (yoy, at CC/CS) continued to decelerate this quarter, declining from +8% in Q1 to +1% in Q3 2019, despite the positive impact of an additional working day (+90 bps on revenue growth during the quarter). The company suffered from the same issues as in Q2: a slowdown in the automotive sector from its largest automotive client, (impacting Industrial & Digital Solutions Division) and delayed decision-making in the Infrastructure Division in Denmark.
It has been almost three years since Accenture launched Industry X.0, and we estimate that Accenture acquired nine competitors in these 36 months. The pace is accelerating with Accenture having five competitors in 2019, YTD.
During its Q2 FY20 earnings call, Wipro provided some light about the performance of its Industrial & Engineering Services (E&IS) unit.
It is not so long ago that Wipro was corporate India’s strongest name for ER&D services, mostly servicing clients in the network equipment provider industry and also semiconductor manufacturers.