After months of speculation and weeks of rumors, yesterday ABB announced it was divesting its Power Grids Division to Hitachi. The months of speculation derived from the European activist investor Cevian Capital, which won a seat on the ABB Board in 2017, apparently with an agenda of breaking up the group. ABB shareholders will receive roughly $7.7 billion from the transaction through buybacks or similar actions.

The high-tech company TRUMPF is acquiring 100 percent of Photonics GmbH from Philips, headquartered in Ulm, Germany.  This opens up a new market segment for TRUMPF in addition to its existing business with high-power diode lasers and expands its product portfolio.

Hitachi, Ltd. announced that it is acquiring the power grids business from ABB Ltd. and has signed an agreement with ABB.  Hitachi plans to initially acquire an 80.1% stake in the ABB Power Grid business and expects to close the acquisition in the first half of 2020, making Power Grids a consolidated subsidiary.

Tata Consultancy Services and Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced the launch of the Intelligent Airline Operations (IAO) Solution, an operations management solution that will digitally transform airlines’ ground services and operations control.

GE Digital and Silver Lake announced an agreement for GE Digital to sell a majority stake in ServiceMax, a major provider of cloud-based software productivity tools for field service technicians, to Silver Lake, a global private equity firm focused on technology investing. 

FogHorn announced a collaboration with Dell EMC OEM Solutions to deliver end-to-end Industrial IoT (IIoT) edge computing solutions.  This collaboration allows industrial and commercial customers to leverage the power of the edge quickly with an out-of-the-box solution for their Industrial IoT (IIoT) deployments.

The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and Linaro Ltd, the open source collaborative engineering organization developing software for the Arm ecosystem, announced they have agreed to a liaison to work together to advance their shared interests. 

Infor announced the acquisition of Alfa-Beta Solutions, a Dutch system integrator.  Alfa-Beta Solutions, a Gold Infor Channel Partner, specializes on mid-market and large enterprises in the food & beverage (F&B) industry across Benelux and Germany.

​​​​​​​Siemens announced it has acquired COMSA Computer und Software GmbH, a Munich-based company which develops software for electrical systems design and wire harness engineering.  Its LDorado suite is the leader in automotive harness design and engineering software in Germany.

AVEVA, a global provider of engineering and industrial software, and KBR, a global provider of professional services and technologies across the asset and program lifecycle within the Government Services and Hydrocarbons sectors, announced the signing of a multi-phase agreement. AVEVA will be a major contributor to KBR’s digital transformation, which will help to deliver cost savings and to provide enhanced services to their clients.