Raritan splits: Gets acquired by Legrand; spins off DCIM business as a seperate company

North American electrical company Legrand has agreed to buy Raritan, New Jersey-based company specialising in data centre infrastructure solutions.

The scope of the acquisition would include Raritan’s intelligent power and KVM businesses, while its Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software business would spin off into Sunbird Software, a new company and strategic partner of Raritan to be chaired by Ching-I Hsu, CEO and founder of Raritan.

“The complementary strengths of these businesses and product offerings would be unmatched by any other supplier in this industry,” said John Selldorff, President and Chief Executive Officer, Legrand, North America. “The combined leadership team looks forward to making a real difference for global data center customers, now and for the future.”

It is anticipated that once the transaction is closed, Raritan would operate as an independent business within Legrand.

Additionally, Raritan’s Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software business would spin off into Sunbird Software. The DCIM market is expected to grow rapidly due to industry trends toward improving data centre energy efficiency, asset, capacity, and operations management.

“The restructuring and spinoff of this successful DCIM business within Raritan will allow the newly formed Sunbird Software to focus on growing its leadership position in the DCIM market, accelerating software development, sales and services," Ching-I Hsu said.

The completion of the proposed spin-off is subject to the completion of conditions for closing the Raritan-Legrand transaction. Until such time, Sunbird Software will continue to operate as part of Raritan and Raritan will continue to operate independent of Legrand.

After closing, Sunbird Software would operate as an independent business separate from Raritan. Herman Chan, current Raritan SVP Marketing and GM DCIM will become President of Sunbird Software.

“With over 850 global customers, Sunbird is a leader in the growing DCIM software market and will become a nimbler, more agile company enabling the best customer and partner experience with its additional focus” said Herman Chan.  “As an established partner of Raritan, Sunbird will support Raritan’s future hardware while innovating to address opportunities with a broader set of vendor partners.”