Orange has confirmed it will acquire Cloudwatt

Orange confirmed this week that the company has finalised an agreement to acquire all remaining shares of Cloudwatt, the cloud services provider it set up with the French government.

In January the company confirmed it had entered into discussions to buy the firm, in which Orange had the largest stake; Thales owned 22 per cent and Caisse des Dépôts 33 per cent of Cloudwatt.

“By acquiring Cloudwatt, Orange will strengthen its enterprise cloud services offering – a major focus of its “Essentials2020″ strategic plan,” Orange said in a statement.

“The technologies and services offered by Cloudwatt complement Orange’s own portfolio and represent an opportunity to accelerate the deployment of a sovereign public cloud both in France and in Europe.”

Through Caisse des Dépôts, the French state paid €75m for its share of Cloudwatt and spent another €75m to help set up Numergy (co-founded by SFR and Bull) through the French government’s ‘Project Andromeda’ in a bid to provide locally-hosted competition to US-based cloud service providers.

Reports earlier this year suggested a potential merger between Numergy and Cloudwatt was in the works in late 2014, however, now that Atos owns Bull and Numericable owns SFR, it’s thought a potential deal would have been too awkward for shareholders to accept.

The acquisition will see Orange integrate all of Cloudwatt’s employee into its operations (likely the company’s Business Services division).