Siemens Mobility has signed an agreement to acquire the Netherlands-based company Sqills, according to the company's press release. 

Sqills is a global provider in the provision of cloud-based inventory management, reservation, and ticketing software to public transport operators.

“The acquisition of Sqills is a perfect example of how Siemens combines the real and digital worlds to empower its customers in their transformation,” said Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens AG. “At the same time, Sqills supports our own growth path for digital services and is a great example of applying our capital allocation criteria through targeted acquisitions. It also fits perfectly to our recently announced focus on generating recurring revenue through resilient business models such as Software as a Service.”

Sqills has developed “S3 Passenger” as a platform that enables rail and bus operators to replace their legacy reservation systems with an online booking system that increases the utilization and availability of passenger transportation.

This technology adds a solution to Siemens Mobility’s software portfolio. The agreed purchase price is 550 million Euros along with an earn out.

“To significantly increase passengers on the rails and reach climate targets by 2030, we need to provide passengers with a more optimized process that allows them to seamlessly identify and utilize all offered train services.” said Michael Peter, CEO of Siemens Mobility. “The acquisition of Sqills and its easy to implement SaaS inventory, reservation and ticketing platform gives us the ability to achieve exactly that. Furthermore, combining the Sqills booking platform and the Hacon solutions provide a comprehensive offering for operators to manage their key travel processes, including trip searching and yield management.”

The acquisition of Sqills is the latest example of Siemens Mobility’s dedication to developing its software portfolio for digital intermodal and connected mobility solutions. Sqills’ S3 Passenger will become part of an interconnected software portfolio where a variety of services for public transport are brought together.

Siemens Mobility can now provide operators with an enhanced SaaS offering to manage their core processes.

“Joining Siemens Mobility’s growing business and software portfolio for intermodal and connected travel is a tremendous opportunity that allows Sqills to advance its plans to expand beyond Europe into Asia Pacific and the Americas as well as its ongoing investment in team, product and existing long term operator partnerships,” said Bart van Munster, board member and co-founder of Sqills. “Together with a strong and trusted international partner like Siemens Mobility, we'll be even better equipped to drive the mobility software business and optimization of rail and bus travel on a global scale with local representation.”

The acquisition is expected to be EPS accretive pre-PPA in the second year after closing.