*To offer $24.25/ share to buy out Exa stock. PARIS, Sept 28- French software company Dassault Systemes has agreed to buy U. S. peer Exa Corp in a deal valued at about $400 million, which Dassault said would boost…
* To offer $24.25/share to buy out Exa stock
* Deal values Exa Corp at around $400 mln
* Dassault Systemes says deal will boost product range (Adds detail and background)
PARIS, Sept 28 (Reuters) — French software company Dassault Systemes has agreed to buy U. S. peer Exa Corp in a deal valued at about $400 million, which Dassault said would boost its range of products for clients.
Exa said Dassault would offer $24.25 per share — a premium of about 43 percent compared to Exa’s closing stock price of about $17 on Wednesday — to buy out its shares, and that the transaction valued Exa at about $400 million.
«With Exa’s valuable application knowledge in transportation and mobility and other industry verticals, we will accelerate our delivery of industry solution experiences to benefit our existing and future customers,» Dassault Systemes Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Bernard Charles said in a statement.
Exa’s clients include the likes of carmakers BMW, Tesla and Toyota, as well as planemaker Embraer.
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017, the companies said in a joint statement.
Dassault has embarked on several acquisitions so far this year, including buying a majority stake in the cloud computing software firm Outscale and purchasing Dutch company AITAC. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
