Credit: Shutterstock photoGE Digital, an integral part of General Electric CompanyGE , recently acquired Meridium, Inc., a global leader in asset performance management (APM) software and services for asset-intensive industries. The transaction marks a logical extension to its long-standing relationship with Meridium since Jul 2014, wherein it acquired a 26% ownership stake in it. The total acquisition, including the original investment, was worth an enterprise value of $495 million.
Meridium combines real-time analytics with reliability-centered maintenance services to offer an integrated APM solution for its clients. The acquisition will facilitate GE Digital to augment its comprehensive APM offering by leveraging Meridium's expertise in cognitive analytics, reliability centered maintenance, operational risk management and asset health, as well as intelligent asset strategies.
On its part, GE Digital will utilize its Predix platform along with Meridium's enterprise software solutions to improve the APM offering through advanced asset-centric analytics, industrial software and value-added services. This, in turn, will enable it to boost the Industrial Internet for asset-centric industries - such as oil & gas, power and chemicals, in order to maximize the availability of their industrial assets at lower operational costs and risks.
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The Predix software of General Electric is designed to add intelligence to the Internet of Things applications. It helps companies to connect their machines, data and people and run industrial-scale analytics. Combining machine connectivity with a data lifecycle management platform powered by engineering simulation will help diverse firms to design their products for the Industrial Internet in an optimum manner.
Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of the company, stated, "So when I talk about the 'Industrial Internet,' it's about capturing data off of machines, turning it back into valuable insight for our customers and that's going to be worth trillions of dollars in the economy, and I think it's going to transform GE."
The acquisition will also help Meridium's customers to gain easy access to General Electric's deep domain expertise in real-time data management and advanced industrial analytics for an informed decision-making process. The transaction, therefore, is a win-win for both the participating companies.
General Electric currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other favorably ranked stocks in the industry include CLARCOR Inc. CLC , Crane Co. CR and Barloworld Ltd. BRRAY , each carrying the same Zacks Rank as General Electric. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here .
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
