Altium

Altium Limited was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in the city of Sydney, Australia. The company has branches in Europe, the United States, Japan and China, as well as partners in all major regions of the world.

The company's products such as Altium Designer (formerly Protel), P-CAD, Tasking and others are widely known in the world and have proven themselves to be convenient and reliable tools for electronics developers.

History

2024: Renesas Electronics bought Altium

Japanese Renesas Electronics On February 15, 2024, the chipmaker announced an agreement to buy Australian company Altium, which specializes in designing software printed circuit boards. The transaction amount is approximately $5.9 billion.

Under the terms of the contract, Renesas will acquire all outstanding shares of Altium. The deal, as noted, is in line with Renesas' digitalization strategy and represents the company's first significant step in providing a comprehensive solution for electronic system developers. The acquisition, in particular, will create an integrated and open platform for electronic product design and lifecycle management.

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Renesas Electronics

Renesas notes that as technology evolves, the design and integration of electronic systems becomes more complex. Such a process consists of many stages: from the selection and evaluation of components to modeling and physical design of a printed circuit board. Therefore, engineers need to be able to create solutions that are not only functional, but also efficient and economical. The new Renesas and Altium platform is expected to address relevant challenges.

It is assumed that the parties will combine the capabilities of the Altium cloud ecosystem with a rich set of embedded Renesas solutions. The platform will provide integration and standardization of various electronic design data and functions, as well as improved component lifecycle management. At the same time, workflow integration will help improve overall performance. The deal is unanimously approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2024 after getting the necessary approvals from regulators.^[1]

2021: $3.91 billion no-deal with Autodesk

In early June 2021, Altium management announced receipt from Autodesk an offer to buy the company, it was ready to pay 38.5 Australian (dollars about $29.5) per share. In general, the transaction would have amounted to 5.05 billion Australian dollars (about $3.91 billion), but Altium refused the offer.

Altium's board appreciates the interest shown by Autodesk... however, it believes the offer significantly underestimates Altium's prospects and therefore rejects the offer at the current price, the company said in a statement to Autodesk.

Autodesk offered $3.91 billion to buy rival Altium, but the company refused

In my opinion, the company said it was open to considering the application, "said analyst Ben Clark from TMS Capital. - Obviously, there is something to work on.

Clarke added that Altium chief executive Aram Mirkazemi, with a significant stake, would play an important role in the success of any bidder.

Additional negotiations will be held between the two (parties). It really comes down to what Aram Mirkazemi wants to do as a major shareholder in Altium.

RBC Capital's Harry Sheriff agrees that Altium's rejection of the Autodesk deal may be inconclusive, as the company may offer a different amount, although an offer at a significantly high price is unlikely.

Jarden analyst Elise Kennedy believes this potential acquisition could expand Altium's overall address market beyond the PCB market and could facilitate product adoption through cross-selling to Autodesk customers.

In February 2021, Altium announced the first revenue decline in a decade, which was affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the company described its long-term goal - to create a digital platform for managing the design, production and distribution of goods for the global electronics industry worth $2 trillion.^[2]

Business in Russia

2016: On cooperation with a number of regional universities

In June 2016, Altium Limited announced the start of cooperation with a number of regional universities, including: Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (UrFU), St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" named after V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin), as well as Novgorod State University named after Yaroslav the Wise (NovSU). The goal of the collaboration is to help higher education institutions prepare future specialists in the field of knowledge-intensive technologies based on the company's new software. As part of the collaboration, Altium Limited will not only provide students of regional universities with the advanced licensed Altium Designer 16.1 solution, but will also help develop a methodology for teaching how to work with their software.

2015

Altium changes sales model in Russia

On August 6, 2015, Altium Limited, the world's leading developer of software for the design of electronic devices, announced a change in the sales model in Russia from July 1, 2015.

So, since July 2015, the company has switched to a single-stage sales model. If Altium previously worked with a non-exclusive distributor - CJSC Nanosoft"" and fifteen partners, then the developer currently uses a direct interaction system with resellers. Thus, the vendor seeks to be closer to the user and understand his needs in order to further provide high-quality software products.

"We are grateful to Nanosoft for its significant contribution to the development of both the partner channel and the increase in sales," comments Oleg Ilyukin, Senior Territorial Manager of Altium for Russia and the CIS. - As a result of our joint fruitful work, Altium products have actually become the standard in the field of designing electronic equipment at enterprises. Now we set ourselves a new goal - to increase our own presence in the market. "

The changes affected, among other things, the sales channel. You have decided to continue working with only a few authorized resellers who specialize in Altium solutions. In the near future, the developer plans to introduce a new partner program and carry out certification of technical specialists of partner companies. In addition, as part of the advanced training for working with CAD Altium Designer in July 2015, the company opened the Training Center in Moscow. Altium technical specialist Alexander Fen conducts training in it.

"The Russian market is an important part of Altium's global business. Currently, more than 800 enterprises and universities are users of the company's products. Therefore, even despite not the most favorable, from an economic point of view, the vendor decided to increase investments in Russia and in the further development of the product under the requirements of users, - comments Oleg Ilyukin. "We believe that the success of the company's business directly depends on the development of industrial enterprises in Russia."

Acquisition of Octopart and Ciiva

On August 27, 2015, Altium Limited announced the acquisition of two companies in the information resources market - electronic components and sourcing - Octopart and Ciiva, respectively.

Altium Limited has signed an agreement to purchase Octopart, an electronic component search engine and specialized hardware, and a contract to acquire Ciiva, a cloud-based electronic component management system to monitor and track the health of these components throughout the product lifecycle management process. The purpose of the transactions is to expand the Altium product line, develop the strategy of "Integrated Information Resources" to optimize workflow management.

Data Base of electronic components Octopart

The acquisition of Octopart for Altium is direct access to the base of more than 30 million electronic and industrial components. Through this, the company can increase the amount of content offered to users of its PCB design tools. Altium customers will benefit from the extensive supplier database provided by Octopart, which will give developers the ability to communicate directly with distributors and manufacturers of electronic components.

Cloud-based electronic component management from Ciiva

The deal Ciiva with will give Altium the ability to provide its customers with an integrated element base management solution that will allow engineers to simplify the specification and data management process. Through the integration of tools, content, services between Altium Ciiva and engineers around the world, you can perform specialized development, use data management capabilities during the product design process.

Availability and Updates

According to the company, all tools and solutions offered by Octopart and Ciiva will continue to operate normally, with no consequences for existing customers. In the coming months, the companies plan to establish interaction between Octopart, Ciiva and Altium with the aim of integrating their technology and management platforms into the new ecosystem.

Notes