Schneider Electric Nears $20 Billion Deal to Buy US Software Giant PTC

France's Schneider Electric is nearing a deal to buy US industrial software company PTC for about $20 billion, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, in what would be the largest takeover in the French engineering giant's history.

Neither Schneider Electric nor PTC immediately responded to requests for comment. Reuters cited a person close to the talks confirming the discussions, and said it could not independently verify the FT report.

The reported price would put a rich premium on PTC. The Boston-based company has a market value of about $15.63 billion, according to LSEG data, so a $20 billion deal would represent a premium of roughly 28 percent over its current valuation. PTC shares jumped in after-hours trading on the news.

The acquisition would deepen Schneider's aggressive push into software. In June it agreed to acquire Cognite, a privately held provider of AI software and industrial data, and in 2023 it completed its $11 billion buyout of British industrial software firm Aveva.

Schneider's shares are up 28 percent year-to-date, giving it a market capitalization of about €175 billion and plenty of room for large deals.

Schneider, once known mainly for industrial components such as fuses and circuit breakers, has steadily repositioned itself around the infrastructure powering the AI era.

The company now supplies cooling units, server racks and critical power distribution equipment for data centers, and booming data center demand — particularly from the United States — has become a growing source of revenue, helping offset softness in some traditional electrical-equipment markets.

PTC, founded in the 1980s, develops engineering software used by manufacturers to design products and manage them through their lifecycle.

Its best-known platform is Creo, a computer-aided design suite, alongside product lifecycle management, digital twin, IoT and augmented reality tools — increasingly enhanced with AI-powered features.

The company has also been riding the same demand wave as its suitor: in July, PTC lifted its annual revenue forecast after third-quarter results, betting on continued strength in its core industrial software and AI-powered tools.

In the same month, Schneider lifted its own annual revenue forecast after reporting record first-half results, pointing to strong demand for its core industrial software and AI-powered offerings.

Combined, Schneider's energy management and automation business with PTC's design and engineering software would create one of the broadest portfolios in industrial technology — software that not only designs and manages products, but also powers and optimizes the factories that make them.

The talks reflect a wider consolidation race among industrial conglomerates to own the software stack that runs modern manufacturing. As factories go digital — digital twins, AI-assisted design, predictive maintenance — the engineering software layer is becoming as strategically valuable as the machinery itself.

Whether Schneider can close the deal at a price its shareholders accept remains to be seen, and talks can still fall through. But the direction of travel is clear: the world's big industrial players now see software as the crown jewel of the factory, and they are paying premiums to own it.