Baan sold at massive loss

Loss-making entrprise resource planning software vendor Baan is to be sold, as expected, to a group of private investment firms in a $135m (£83m) deal - less than a fifth of its sale price three years ago.

General Atlantic Partners and Cerberus Capital Management intend to combine Baan with enterprise application maker SSA Global Technologies (SSA GT), which is also owned by the group, following the acquisition.

But both Baan and SSA GT will continue to trade under their existing names, and operate with separate sales forces.

In the immediate future Baan will be looking for some stability. Company president Laurens van der Tang admitted that recent speculation had created an air of "uncertainty", but hoped that the announcement would reassure customers and channel partners.

"General Atlantic Partners is committed to future investment in Baan, and the next-generation release, codenamed Gemini, will move forward for an autumn release," he said.

Van der Tang's own future is less certain. He said that he would be making a decision whether to stay on "over the next couple of weeks".

Whether General Atlantic will have more success with Baan than engineering firm Invensys did remains to be seen. Three years ago, Invensys paid £470m for Baan, but mounting debt has forced it to offload the software business.

Judith Jordan, analyst at Ovum Holway, said Baan had an enviable blue chip client list but was still losing money, and growing revenues is difficult in current conditions, said.

"Vendors are having to concentrate on cost control. But Invensys has already put a lot effort into this. It will be interesting to see what more General Atlantic can do," she said.