Esko and the three main shareholders in Artwork Systems have struck a deal to combine operations in a move that would form a £122m global pre-press giant.Artwork Systems founders Guido Van der Schueren, Peter Denoo and Bart Denoo collectively own 76.69% of the company, and would sell their 13m shares at £7.73p each.
The transaction values Artwork Systems at £131m.
The sale is expected to complete on 9 August, after which Esko would offer all outstanding Artwork shares for sale at the same price.
Esko chief executive Carsten Knudsen told printweek.com: "I see this as an opportunity to help these customers to have one workflow rather than incompatible ones."
He added that the respective companies' software engineers would be working on extending compatibility between products, but that it would take time.
Knudsen said that the deal would not result in any large-scale redundancies.
"We have been growing quite strongly, around 10% a year. During that process, we have been moving large numbers of our staff from non-customer facing positions to customer facing ones.
He said that despite the projected size of Esko, it would not be subject to authorisation from the EU competition authorities.
"We've obviously done our homework on this and have come to a conclusion," he said. "It's a big market we sit in, but the transaction isn't subject to competition issues."
Following the deal, Knudsen will remain chief executive while Van der Schueren will take on the role of chief commercial officer.
Both companies have strong operations in Europe and the US, but Esko has a grip on the Asia/Pacific market, while Artwork Systems is more dominant in Latin America.
Source: printweek
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