SAN DIEGO -- Altium will sell its Tasking business unit to a private equity group for more than $100 million in what the ECAD company is calling a "strategic divestment."

FSN Capital, a European private equity firm, will pay up to $110 million for Tasking, $10 million of it conditional on the company hitting certain revenue targets in the 2021 financial year.

The deal will close in the second half of Altium's current fiscal year, which ends in June. Altium will instead focus on its printed circuit board design software.

Tasking produces embedded systems development software. The unit recorded flat sales of sales of $20 million in Altium's fiscal 2020 due to Covid-related market issues.

"While Tasking is a great business, it does not play a central role in our design to realization strategy for the electronics industry, which is being delivered through our new cloud platform, Altium 365," Altium said in announcing the deal.

"The strategic divestment of Tasking combined with our recent organizational changes and hard pivot to the cloud marks an inflection point for Altium in its pursuit of industry transformation," said Aram Mirkazemi, chief executive, Altium. "The divestment of Tasking will free up organizational capacity and allow Altium leadership to focus on our main game, which is to expand Altium 365 and accelerate its adoption."

Altium acquired Tasking in 2001.

On Nov. 19 Altium guided for fiscal 2021 full-year revenue of $200 million to $212 million. In announcing the Tasking deal, it reiterated that guidance, less Tasking, which implies a lower forecast for its PCB tools going forward into calendar 2021. 

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