CISEL announces the acquisition of the IT service provider neo technologies. Of equal size, the two companies will continue to operate under their own names and with their teams within the CISEL group, which will have nearly 200 employees.
Owned by Groupe E and Romande Energie, CISEL was bought out by its management in 2018. Last spring, the IT service provider announced the arrival in its capital of the investment company Manixer as a majority shareholder to support its growth projects. An ambition that the acquisition of neo technologies comes to concretize. Reached by telephone by the editorial staff, Nicolas Roch-Neirey, CEO of CISEL, explains that the similar size of the two entities, the proximity of their corporate cultures and above all the complementarity of their offers decided on this acquisition.
A growing SAP service provider
Neo technologies also has a history on the electricity side, since it comes from the IT department of Romande Energie. In 2004, the electrical distributor decided with the Industrial Services of Lausanne and the Municipality of Lutry to create together an independent company allowing them “to maintain privileged access to SAP skills in a critical development phase”.
Still specializing in SAP solutions, neo technologies now offers services ranging from consulting to environment management, including cloud migration to S/4 HANA, and has clients in the public and para-public sector, but also more and more in the industry. On the phone, Jean-Luc Philipona, managing director of neo technologies, explains to ICTjournal that his company has grown considerably and that it now generates more than half of its turnover with clients other than its three shareholders.
This development of neo technologies prompted Romande Energie and its partners to look for a buyer. In September, they explained in a press release that “the digital world having evolved considerably in recent years, the performance of neo technologies being positive and the opportunity to allow the company to broaden its prospects becoming clearer, the shareholders took the decision to sell 100% of the company’s share capital to a single buyer”. They also underlined their intention to continue collaborating with neo technologies, as a strategic and essential service provider, after the change in ownership.
Mutual reinforcement
Gathered in the same group, CISEL and neo technologies intend to exploit the complementarity of their offers. CISEL will strengthen its capabilities in the SAP field and neo technologies will be able to offer its customers the full range of CISEL IT services (consulting, integration, cloud, managed services, cybersecurity, etc.). Nicolas Roch-Neirey is also pleased to achieve with this acquisition a critical size to better meet the needs of the local market.
“The combination of the two companies will make it possible to respond optimally to the needs of the IT market in Switzerland and to strengthen, with a workforce close to 200 employees on January 1, 2023, the strategic positioning of the group for SAP, Cloud and security projects. The expertise and complementarity of resources will allow us to strengthen our positioning and offer our employees new perspectives while maintaining similar corporate cultures”, jointly declare Jean-Luc Philipona, Director of neo technologies and Nicolas Roch-Neirey, CEO of the CISEL group.