Rival Aspen Technology’s US$623 million acquisition of Micromine vindicated Bentley Systems’ earlier, billion-dollar move on Seequent, which is underpinning growth in its new resources business segment, its leaders suggested this week. “Mining is a hot business, and mining software has a lot of potential,” COO Nicholas Cumins said on the company’s June-quarter results call.
CEO Greg Bentley said on the call AspenTech’s bid for Australia’s Micromine, among a spate of recent M&A in the mining digital space, “is kind of a change in their direction … under Emerson [majority owner of ‘new’ AspenTech], but does reflect secular opportunities in mining”.
“Mining can be done differently and better, and it starts with the subsurface modelling that Seequent helped pioneer.”
