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October 2000
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Convergent-Schlumberger Merges
Convergent Group Corporation announced the signing of a definitive agreement with a wholly owned subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited, under the terms of which the Schlumberger subsidiary will acquire approximately 71.7 percent of the outstanding common shares of Convergent Group, including all shares held by the public, for $8.00 per share in cash. Convergent Group management and employees will own approximately 26 percent of the remaining shares, and Cinergy Ventures LLC, a unit of Cinergy Corp. (NYSE:CIN), the firm's largest client, will retain equity in the firm, holding the remaining ownership interest. The agreement and the tender offer were negotiated and approved by a committee of independent directors of Convergent Group, and the agreement provides that Convergent Group may consider superior proposals to the tender offer and the merger.
Defining Convergent Group's objective for the transaction, President and Chief Executive Officer Glenn E. Montgomery explained that the merger should position the firm to capture greater market share for the Digital Utility,SM its service offering that helps enable utilities to transform their business models into digital business enterprises.
"The emerging market for the Digital Utility is large, global and developing quickly," Montgomery said. "This merger represents a fusion between energy delivery and revenue automation, thus offering first-of-a-kind capabilities to significantly extend the value of a digital enterprise. The company is moving quickly to become the first to offer a totally integrated digital enterprise for utilities, one that consolidates independent utility IT functions to create a new digital business environment, effectively positioning IT as a major enabler of utility business transformation."
The objectives of the Digital Utility are to revolutionize the customers' experiences by empowering them with direct, anytime access to services and information and to reduce utility transaction and operational costs by enabling end-to-end automation of customers' business processes.
Prior to the merger, the Digital Utility addressed key business issues spanning front-office applications, including call center and customer relationship management; back-office applications like finance, accounting and human resources; and energy delivery applications like mobile work force and outage management. As a result of the merger, the Digital Utility is expected to be expanded to include revenue management, load data management and fixed network optimization.
" Schlumberger Resource Management Services (RMS) gives the Digital Utility greater depth and breadth of product and service offerings," said Montgomery. "Leveraging their capabilities in remote metering, billing, data collection and analysis should help Digital Utility customers automate aspects of the revenue process, provide more robust analytical capabilities and improve the efficiency of utilities' fixed networks."
"We believe that Schlumberger's global presence and experience should enhance Convergent Group's capability to deliver its solutions to end users worldwide, and we are very enthusiastic about our newly formed partnership with Schlumberger," commented Larry E. Thomas, group president of new technologies for Cinergy Corp.
"The combined strengths of our companies will provide technology and thought leadership to the markets we serve," said Clermont Matton, executive vice president of Schlumberger RMS. "The merger represents an opportunity to develop and market new technologies and solutions that are not available anywhere else."
More information available at www.convergentgroup.com .
and www.slb.com
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