The abas company was founded in 1980 and today provides a complete ERP portfolio to around 4,000 medium-sized production and trading companies worldwide. It currently employs 450 people.

"abas is an important strategic milestone for Forterro as it represents not only our eighth ERP software acquisition in Europe, but also our entry into Germany, Europe's largest manufacturing market," said Jeff Tognoni, CEO of Forterro. "With the acquisition of abas, we gain a strong product, an established brand, a large and loyal customer base and a talented team of product and market experts. abas shares all of these qualities with Forterro's existing investments. We are very much looking forward to working closely with the abas team and expanding abas' position as a leading international ERP provider for the manufacturing industry."

The acquisition follows a series of strategic product initiatives and management commitments at abas and will accelerate the expansion of the cloud portfolio, a larger ecosystem of products around the core ERP product, as well as new industry solutions from the cloud. The acquisition is expected to give abas the ability to further expand its ecosystems and international footprint while accelerating time to market for new, enhanced products and services by leveraging the resources, expertise and capital of the new group and its sister companies.

Baris Ergun, CEO at abas, explains: "Digitalization and the Internet of Things are changing our customers' business models and many processes in an unprecedentedly disruptive way. Over the past two years, we have already created the technological foundations and the ecosystem to meet the growing demand for IoT-enabled value chains and increasing user mobility. The agreement with Forterro will enable us to bring our new offerings to more markets while leveraging local synergies with other ERP providers in the new group. We look forward to becoming a member of the Forterro family."

"Forterro is the perfect partner for abas. We share the view that local providers understand the requirements of local companies best. This is great news for our team, our partners and customers in the local markets," says Werner Strub, co-founder and long-standing CEO of abas.

The takeover still has to be approved by the relevant antitrust authorities.

Board Advisors Deutschland AG acted as M&A advisor to abas Software AG and its shareholders, the law firm Friedrich Graf von Westphalen as legal advisor.