Logistics technology provider Körber Supply Chain Software has agreed to acquire the North Carolina-based transportation management system (TMS) software vendor MercuryGate International Inc., saying the combined portfolio will expand its global supply chain execution solutions by delivering increased flexibility, scalability, and resiliency to customers.
Hamburg, Germany-based Körber said it made the move as the complexities of global supply chains continue to grow. By extending its portfolio of solutions across all supply chain execution operations, the company said it will become a leader in managing the movement of goods from procurement to receipt and fulfillment to the end consumer, reducing planning silos, accelerating resolution of issues, and improving customer and business outcomes.
In doing so, the acquisition of MercuryGate will establish a “critical pillar” of Körber’s ambition to create a unified supply chain execution suite that can offer real-time optimization and collaboration across the supply chain, the company said.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Körber Supply Chain Software is one arm of its parent company, Korber—alongside sibling units in digital, pharma, and technologies—and has deep financial backing from its part owner, the investment firm KKR. The acquisition comes barely a month after Korber named a new CEO for the supply chain software business line, hiring Edward Auriemma away from fellow logistics tech firm Blue Yonder.
MercuryGate itself has also been growing through acquisitions in recent years, in 2022 buying the supply chain management software firm ClearTrack Information Network.
That deal came after MercuryGate itself was acquired by the private equity firm Summit Partners in 2018. Today those investors supported the sale, according to Peter Rottier, a managing director at Summit Partners. “We believed that global supply chains and growing customer demand for shorter order-to-delivery times would support increased adoption of solutions like MercuryGate’s that are designed to help shippers and logistics providers mitigate the costs and complexity associated with transportation,” Rottier said.
