Bryan, Garnier & Co advises TRASYS’ shareholders on the sale of the company to the NRB Group

Paris, the 3rd of November 2015 – The Belgian Competition Authority gave its formal consent to the purchase of Trasys Group shares by NRB on the 22nd of October. The transaction was concluded on the 29th of October. Trasys thereby became a 100% subsidiary of the NRB Group. The operational integration of the two companies starts straight away. With a sales figure of 300 million Euros and more than 2,000 employees, the new entity has become one of the leaders of the Belgian ICT market.
Bryan, Garnier & Co acted as the financial advisor of Trasys’ shareholders on this transaction.
Ulrich Penzkofer, CEO of the NRB Group, commented: “The Trasys acquisition is an important step in the realisation of our strategic plan to become the number 1 Belgian provider of IT services. The integrated portfolio of products and solutions will be unique in Belgium. Both companies complement each other: on the one hand they offer vertical solutions, sourcing and nearshore capacity; on the other hand, they offer data centre services, mainframe development capability and packaged solutions. The new NRB will be able to bring even more value-added to all its clients. For example, by strengthening our SAP offering to utilities or by adding services for the optimisation of production processes to our industrial offerings.
In addition, in the current global context, our competitors also pursue growth. NRB needs to have sufficient size to remain or show up on the radar of ICT decision-makers.”
Chris De Hous, CEO of Trasys added: “Our joint consulting services and the solutions that support the digital transformation of our clients act as levers for the integrated portfolio – including the infrastructure services – thus creating greater added value for our clients. This can be done by defining a roadmap towards an ICT architecture in step with the demands of the new digital economy, or by the implementation of a hybrid cloud environment, business analytics or mobile solutions to satisfy the same requirements.”
“This integration presents two major advantages, namely a complete portfolio of solutions and flexible capabilities of delivery,” Ulrich Penzkofer maintained. “The new, integrated entity will be able to provide its solutions to the specific needs and in a mode that best suits the client: in the form of a project, by making experts available (‘staffing’) or in a specific mode requested by the client, including access to nearshore resources.”
“We are convinced that bringing together the two companies will provide a major catalyst for increasing efficiency and the quality of our services, as well as expanding our ability to innovate – all of which we are placing at the disposal of our clients,” Ulrich Penzkofer concluded.
Olivier Garnier, Managing Partner at Bryan, Garnier & Co, stated: “We are proud to have advised Trasys’ shareholders and completed this operation with such a strategic partner as NRB. We welcome the new development opportunities for Trasys arising from this acquisition.”
“After advising on the sale of Airial, a Real Dolmen’s subsidiary, to GFI, the sale of mc2i to Indigo and its management, this new transaction in the IT industry in 2015 further reinforces the leadership and expertise of Bryan Garnier & Co in capital transactions for growing European technology companies.” added Alexandre Boukhari, Director of the TMT practice at Bryan, Garnier & Co.”
List of the seller’s advisors
Financial advisors: Bryan, Garnier & Co – Olivier Garnier, Alexandre Boukhari, Jonathan Foiret-Hurbin, Awa Sow
Financial VDD: PwC – Philippe Estas, Frederik Vanvoorden
About Trasys
TRASYS is an IT solutions and services company with a turnover that amounted to 74 million euros in 2014. Trasys supports its clients throughout their digital transformation and offers them solutions to meet their business-critical challenges. The Trasys experts help their clients to take the best strategic decisions based upon the appropriate analyses and insights, both to manage their operations and in the framework of their digital transformation. They develop, implement and maintain the solutions for digital transformation in close collaboration with their clients, covering the domains of mobility, business analytics, digital commerce, cloud or security. The company headquarters of Trasys are located in Brussels. Still, the company is active all across Europe for clients in the public sector, industry, public utilities, financial institutions and insurance companies, as well as for international institutions. Trasys is proud of its pragmatic IT approach: Trasys ensures that its clients’ IT helps them to enhance their business agility and to improve their operational efficiency.
(www.trasys.be)
About NRB
With consolidated revenues of €222 million in 2014 and more than 1,100 employees, the NRB Group is among the top 5 of the ICT sector in Belgium. NRB, the parent company, was founded in 1987 as a shared IT department by Ethias and some public utilities. Over time, the company has grown – in part through strategic acquisitions – to become the major player it is today in Belgium. With almost 30 years of experience, NRB focuses on the financial sector, the public and social sector, public utilities and industry. NRB’s subsidiaries offer sector-specific solutions to their customers, supported by the advantages (in terms of scale) and the ICT infrastructure that the Group offers. The Xperthis Group (Xperthis, Mims and Ciges) specialises in IT for the health care sector. Cevi and Logins in Flanders and Civadis in Brussels and Wallonia are specialised in IT products and services for the local public sector. Afelio designs and develops professional mobile and web applications. The NRB Group can rely on a Tier3+ datacentre infrastructure, located at two geo-resilient sites, equipped with state of the art mainframe and distributed systems, renowned for being amongst the most advanced and performing in the country. The NRB Group is a genuine Belgian group, both in terms of its roots and shareholding, as well as its infrastructure and activities.
(www.nrb.be)