Mr Devauchelle Guillaume, Valeo Vice President of innovation comments: “We look forward to the industrialization stage proposed by ESI on the technology developed by CIVITEC in collaboration with IFSTTAR. This approach will allow us to amplify the integration of this valuable technology in Valeo’s solution in terms of innovation, especially in the context of our intuitive driving program integrating the intensification of the active safety”.

Promising value-creation potential related to CIVITEC innovative technology and synergies with ESI Group’s offer

This acquisition, which includes a small top team is already operationally profitable and is expected to be accretive to ESI Group in short term. Regarding ESI Group’s track record in terms of integration and successful industrialization of technology, this acquisition should accentuate value creation by enabling implementation of a more comprehensive crash and safety test offering that can be adopted by the Group’s current partners. Moreover, this is a first step for ESI Group in adapting its offer to the integration and modeling of embedded electronic systems; a strategic move that can be rolled out to all industrial sectors through its international sales network.

After finalization of the full operation, which is being financed by the Group’s credit facilities, ESI Group will own 80% of the company’s capital and CIVITEC will be incorporated within the Group’s consolidated results from March 27, 2015.

As minority shareholder with strong interest in pursuing the strategic partnership with CIVITEC, IFSTTAR will assure continuous transfer from research work to industrial applications.

Philippe Pralus, Managing Director of Civitec comments: “We are delighted to be joining ESI Group, the renowned leader in industrial virtual prototyping. Its advanced collaboration with most global innovative leaders is a unique opportunity to accelerate the industry’s digital revolution by offering new solutions able to co-integrate electronic systems and physical product specificity on the same platform development from the design to the prototyping stage. I am totally confident in ESI’s capacity to capitalize on its worldwide commercial network to roll-out our disruptive technology in the modelling of perception assistance systems”.

For more ESI news, visit: www.esi-group.com

Next Events:

2014 annual results:
April 16, 2015

About CIVITEC

CIVITEC has been founded in 2009 with the mission to support Industries with Pro-SiVIC™, a platform for the modelling and simulation of sensors and their environment. Our team is mix of software developers, application engineers, and 3D designers. CIVITEC helps client innovation and decision-making to: design and develop sensing and embedded perception systems and the related control/command aspect; Improve systems functional performance and robustness.

Flagship software product Pro-SiVIC™ is a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software platform which represents a capitalized research and software development effort of several dozens of man-years. For further information, visit http://www.civitec.com/

About IFSTTAR

IFSTTAR is a major player in the European research on the city and the territories, transportation and civil engineering.

The French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks, born on January 1st 2011, from the merger of INRETS and LCPC, is a Public Institution of a Scientific and Technical Nature, under the joint supervision of the ministry of ecology, sustainable development and energy and the www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv For further information, visit http://www.ifsttar.fr/en/

About ESI

ESI is a world-leading provider of Virtual Prototyping software and services with a strong foundation in the physics of materials and Virtual Manufacturing.

Founded over 40 years ago, ESI has developed a unique proficiency in helping industrial manufacturers replace physical prototypes by virtually replicating the fabrication, assembly and testing of products in different environments. Virtual Prototyping enables ESI’s clients to evaluate the performance of their product and the consequences of its manufacturing history, under normal or accidental conditions. By benefiting from this information early in the process, enterprises know whether a product can be built, and whether it will meet its performance and certification objectives, before any physical prototype is built. To enable customer innovation, ESI’s solutions integrate the latest technologies in high performance computing and immersive Virtual Reality, allowing companies to bring products to life before they even exist.

Today, ESI’s customer base spans nearly every industry sector. The company employs about 1000 high-level specialists worldwide to address the needs of customers in more than 40 countries.

ESI is listed in compartment C of NYSE Euronext Paris and is granted “Entreprise Innovante” (Innovative Company) certification since 2000 by Bpifrance. ESI is eligible for inclusion in FCPI (venture capital trusts dedicated to innovation) and PEA PME.