Supply chain visibility technology provider E2open has been taken private in a $2.1 billion acquisition by logistics software solutions provider WiseTech Global.
The sale gives E2open a new home more than a year after the company initiated a strategic review in March 2024, and enables the Australia-headquartered WiseTech to scale its U.S. presence.
E2open will join another freight tech business under the WiseTech Global umbrella, CargoWise, which is a logistics operations software primarily used by freight forwarders and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) like Ceva Logistics, Seko Logistics and DHL Global Forwarding.
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Although WiseTech already has 16,500 customers across CargoWise and its other platforms like multi-modal rail solutions provider Blume Global, the acquisition will add about 5,600 customers to WiseTech’s network. The cloud-based E2open platform will also give WiseTech access to more than 500,000 manufacturing, logistics, channel and distribution partners, tracking more than 18 billion transactions every year.
With E2open in the fold, WiseTech will have direct connectivity to ocean carriers like Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Maersk and CMA CGM, with the technology tracking 67 million containers annually. Roughly 18.5 percent of global export container bookings are managed through E2open’s platforms.
The WiseTech team sees the E2open product site as a complement to the wider CargoWise ecosystem, since it includes tools for supply chain planning and trade compliance, among others.
“These product opportunities extend our reach in key adjacent markets such as global trade management and supply chain planning whilst filling in gaps in our own products that would have required substantial investment over time,” said Richard White, founder and executive chair at WiseTech Global, in a Monday morning briefing. “These extended capabilities will be attractive to existing and new customers alike and allow our combined customer base access to new and expanded capabilities and new geographies and markets.”
Andrew Cartledge, interim CEO of WiseTech Global, said there was “very little overlap” in products between both solutions.
WiseTech sees an opportunity to take advantage of the growing need for supply chain and logistics software solutions, citing Gartner data indicating that total spend on these technologies would expand from $28 billion in 2024 to $57 billion in 2025.
The deal is expected to be accretive to earnings per share in the first year.
For WiseTech, this is the biggest transaction thus far for the company, which has made 55 acquisitions totaling $1.2 billion over the past 10 years, according to the presentation. E2open is no stranger to making deals either, having invested its own $2.7 billion in acquisitions since 2016, including a $1.7 billion acquisition of logistics software company BluJay Solutions.
WiseTech is taking on $3 billion in debt to finance the deal, with E2open stockholders set to receive $3.30 per share in cash. The per-share purchase price represents a premium of approximately 28 percent over the company’s closing stock price on Friday, the last trading day prior to the Monday announcement, and a premium of approximately 68 percent over the company’s closing stock price on April 30, the day prior to media reports regarding WiseTech’s evaluation of a potential acquisition of the business.
E2open and WiseTech will continue to operate as independent companies until the transaction closes, which is expected in the second half of the 2025 calendar year. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals.
WiseTech has already secured the written approval of shareholders representing more than 50 percent of voting rights, the company said.
Stord expands fulfillment network with Ware2Go M&A
The deal follows another logistics acquisition that caught the industry’s attention, with fulfillment services and commerce enablement technology Stord unveiling earlier this month that it acquired warehouse and inventory management solutions provider Ware2Go from UPS.
Terms of that deal have not been disclosed, but the announcement came just three days after Stord revealed it raised more than $200 million in combined equity and debt financing at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The acquisition and the funding are unrelated, Stord says.
Stord will become a UPS partner as part of the acquisition.
Stord is bringing on 21 new fulfillment centers into its network with the Ware2Go deal, amounting to an extra 2.5 million square feet of warehouse space. This expands on Stord’s 11 fulfillment nodes across 13 buildings in North America, as well as two locations in the U.K. and one in the Netherlands. Stord also has an expanded network of more than 70 partner warehouses worldwide.
The company seeks to power checkout, delivery, fulfillment and returns for growing, high-volume SMBs that want to better compete with online retail giants via its combination of technologies and warehouses. It manages over $6 billion of commerce annually through its fulfillment, warehousing, transportation, and operator-built software suite including OMS, pre- and post-purchase, and WMS platforms.
Ware2Go’s service offerings include direct-to-consumer shipping, Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) for Amazon sellers and retail-compliant B2B shipping.
Stord has sought to expand its own horizons over the past year via acquisitions. The company scooped up Pitney Bowes’ e-commerce fulfillment business and freight and logistics platform ProPack in 2024.
