Peregrine Systems and Harbinger Corporation, the provider of B2B e-Commerce delivery solutions, have announced a merger agreement under which Peregrine will acquire all shares in Harbinger in a stock-for-stock deal valued at £1.3bn. The deal combines the strengths of two companies for fully integrating e-Business processes for Infrastructure Management, e-Procurement and e-Marketplaces (portals), and rapidly deploying best-in-class e-Business solutions. Peregrine has recently been making a move into the British FM software market.

The combined company will enable businesses to access multiple e-Marketplaces for requisitioning, acquiring, managing and disposing of critical assets, facilities and other operating resources. With 44,000 customers and e-Marketplaces already processing more than one million transactions daily, the company will be "by far the largest provider of end-to-end e-Business solutions."

"The combination of Peregrine Systems and Harbinger reshapes the competitive landscape for end-to-end e-Business solutions," said Steve Gardner, president and CEO, Peregrine Systems. "As a single provider, we will create, operate and link e-Business networks, e-Catalogues and online marketplaces, while managing the full lifecycle and infrastructure of e-Business."

The merger will combine Peregrine Systems’ e-Procurement, asset and infrastructure management, and employee self-service solutions with Harbinger's e-Marketplace enablement capabilities. Enabling services via the e-Marketplace include catalogue content management, e-Commerce data transformation, integration and transaction processing, and e-Commerce Application Service Provider (ASP) offerings.

Anna Lagerkvist