• IFS bought Ultimo in 2022, but retained it as independent brand
• Successful EAM businesses tend to move upmarket over time
• Ultimo could command double-digit multiple based on EUR 80m ARR

IPO candidate IFS should consider a carve-out of its enterprise asset management (EAM) unit Ultimo to present a clearer equity story to investors, advisors said.

The Swedish parent company, which provides industrial artificial intelligence (AI) and enterprise software to asset-intensive industries including manufacturing, bought the Dutch EAM company for an undisclosed sum in 2022.

At the time of the deal, Ultimo’s EAM platform was aimed at mid-sized enterprises. It had 2,000 customers globally in manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, infrastructure and utilities, with 180 employees.

In the deal announcement, Ultimo’s then CEO Willem-Jan Scholten described IFS as “the industry’s #1 provider of EAM software” and said that the market was ripe for disruption.

“Ultimo and IFS’ EAMs were initially positioned at different ends of the market, but that distinction has narrowed,” said Seth Collins, managing partner at Scottsdale, Arizona-based information technology (IT) M&A advisory firm martinwolf.

EAM software is designed to maintain and manage physical assets and equipment across their lifecycle. Ultimo’s solution, which is run under its own brand, is AI-augmented and can be implemented in weeks, rather than a year or more for heavier systems.

IFS decided to keep the two businesses apart by design, according to one person familiar with the situation.

The parent company competes at the high end of the market against platforms such as Hexagon, IBM Maximo, Oracle, and SAP, while Ultimo has operated a tier below, said Paul Lachance, chief industry strategist at San Diego-based investment bank Software Equity Group.

However, successful EAM companies almost inevitably move upmarket, Lachance said, putting them into more direct competition with end-to-end enterprise platforms like IFS. The overlap between the two products is likely to grow, he also said.

In May, IFS’ CEO Mark Moffat described a listing as inevitable and said the group is targeting 2027 or 2028, with London, New York and other European venues under consideration.

EQT and Hg are co-control owners of IFS, which was valued at more than EUR 15bn in a transaction announced in April 2025.

A sale of Ultimo would resolve product overlap and channel conflict between the unit and IFS’s own enterprise offering, Miro Parizek, founder and senior partner of London-based tech M&A advisory firm Hampleton Partners, said. It would also focus research and development (R&D) on IFS’s core enterprise business, he said.

“IPO investors prefer focused equity stories,” Parizek said. “Owning two competing internal EAM solutions signals inefficiency and risks muddying sales execution.”

Public-market investors generally favour a clear, differentiated strategy, and owning two overlapping EAM platforms could raise questions about product investment, positioning and go-to-market priorities, Collins said.

Those questions tend to show up as a discount, said Shawn Rea, a chartered accountant, fractional CFO, and co-founder of London-based Exit CFO. Selling Ultimo would remove these issues, and the proceeds could pay down debt or fund AI, he said.

Lachance added: “What creates competitive tension inside IFS becomes simply a growth opportunity for Ultimo as an independent company.”

Rea said: “The lighter, faster-to-deploy product is the one most likely to win the mid-market deals the flagship also wants, so inside the group it either takes sales from the core product or gets starved of investment to protect it.”

A divestiture would solidify IFS’s positioning before its IPO “as a pure-play Tier-1 enterprise software and Industrial AI leader,” Parizek said.

Ultimo’s separate brand and acquisition strategy should make a carve-out more straightforward, three of the advisors said. A buyer would still need standalone financials and clarity on shared technology, intellectual property and customer contracts, they added.

IFS’s owners have experience with deals like this. IFS acquired field service software provider WorkWave in 2017, and EQT carved it out as a separate portfolio company in 2021. In 2022, EQT sold stakes in both IFS and WorkWave to Hg.

Buyers and timing

Building and industrial technology groups looking to close a gap in the mid-market or field operations would likely show solid interest, Parizek said. Autodesk, which recently acquired computerized maintenance management system and EAM platform MaintainX, could take a look if it wanted to consolidate the market further, although Bentley Systems, PTC, or Siemens may be more likely suitors, he said.

Ideally a sale would be signed, if not completed, 12 to 18 months before listing, so the prospectus shows “at least one clean period for the remaining business with the proceeds already in the numbers,” Rea said.

Lachance similarly said he would expect IFS to want any sale substantially completed before an IPO rather than managing both transactions at once. With a listing still one to two years away, he said IFS has time to separate Ultimo cleanly, monetise it and “then approach the public markets with a simpler organizational and investment story.”

Ultimo has completed three acquisitions since its takeover by IFS in 2022, as reported. It is also pursuing further acquisitions, as reported in September.

The unit is approaching EUR 100m in annual revenues, up from around EUR 20m at the time of the sale, its CEO Steven Elsham said in September.

Autodesk agreed in May to acquire MaintainX for about USD 3.6bn in cash and closed the deal in August. MaintainX expects to exceed USD 135m in annual recurring revenues (ARR) in 2026, putting the price at roughly 27x expected ARR.

The deal “strongly reinforces the case for a sale,” Parizek said. Rea agreed, noting that multiples at that level do not last and that such a price “sets the anchor in any negotiation.”

The advisors cautioned against using the MaintainX multiple as a yardstick, however. MaintainX was growing around 50% a year, while Ultimo is a more mature business with lower organic growth, according to Parizek. Ultimo could still command a double-digit multiple of its ARR, he noted.

Ultimo’s ARR is around EUR 80m, with Europe accounting for the majority of the business and the US its fastest growing market, the person familiar with the situation said.

Although a carve-out makes sense, there is also a case for keeping Ultimo within IFS.

Retaining the business could make sense if IFS can demonstrate clear segmentation between the offerings, Collins said.

If Ultimo is growing faster than the core business, that may be what lifts the IPO valuation, Rea said, adding that the answer turns on how its growth and margins compare with the rest of the group.

IFS, Ultimo, and EQT did not respond to requests for comment. Hg declined to comment.