Progress takes over Ipswitch for 225 million dollars

Progress, a company specialising in application development, has acquired Ipswitch for 225 million dollars (200 million euros). Ipswitch makes software for sending data files and network management.

According to Progress, the deal will give a boost to its products for small and medium-sized companies. Among other things, the company creates NativeChat, a solution for the development and implementation of chatbots. With NativeChat, it should be easy to create chatbots that connect to existing systems. The chatbots are able to make conversations and transactions without the need for anyone to come and help.

Ipswitch in turn has WhatsUp Gold and MOVEit. WhatsUp Gold is a solution to monitor and manage the IT infrastructure and applications. It also provides insight into cloud and virtual environments. MOVEit allows companies to securely move critical business information between users, locations and partners. Workflows can also be automated.

The takeover should be completed in April of this year.

Quarterly figures

Progress also reported its figures for the first fiscal quarter of 2019. In addition, the company indicated that it had raised a net income of USD 9.4 million, which is equivalent to 21 cents per share. Turnover amounted to 89.55 million dollars, which is 6 percent lower than a year ago. This exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, which amounted to 87.6 million dollars.

The company also expects good figures for the second quarter. Progress expects sales of between USD 93 million and USD 96 million for that quarter, with profits between USD 55 cents and USD 57 cents per share. For fiscal 2019 as a whole, the company expects a turnover between 403 million and 409 million dollars. The profit for the year should be between $2.46 and $2.52 per share.

The acquisition of Ipswitch was also included in the expectations for the entire fiscal year 2019.