Bentley Systems acquires water-resources software developer Haestad Methods

1 Aug, 2004

Bentley Systems continued a recent string of acquisitions by purchasing Haestad Methods, a developer of water resources solutions. Haestad products handle design, analysis, and management of water distribution supply, municipal sanitary sewers, urban stormwater collection, roadway and civil site drainage, and flood control. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Haestad Methods generates more than $16 million in annual revenue. Its product line includes CivilStorm Dynamic, WaterGEMS, WaterCAD, PumpMaster, HAMMER, GISConnect, Darwin, WaterSAFE, SewerCAD, StormCAD, PondPack, FlowMaster, CulvertMaster, and HEC-Pack.

"I've met the Bentley team and studied their technology portfolio. The opportunities here are astounding," said John Haestad, president and CEO of Haestad Methods. "The Bentley vision and direction are irresistibly compelling, and will forever elevate the way that civil engineers produce and collaborate. This is an ideal match of culture and technology." Haestad will stay on as a Bentley senior vice president.

Bentley will continue to upgrade and extend Haestad's products and support them on MicroStation and ProjectWise. They currently run as stand-alone applications as well on AutoCAD and ESRI. Incidentally, Bentley is likely the largest Autodesk third-party developer, as the Haestad line joins Bentley?s previously acquired MX and AutoPLANT AutoCAD add-ons.

Haestad solutions run as standalone applications as well on the AutoCAD and ESRI platforms. Existing Bentley support for these platforms includes MX, from its acquisition of Infrasoft, and AutoPLANT, from Rebis, running on AutoCAD; MicroStation V8 native support of the Autodesk DWG format as well as Bentley's DGN format; and the Bentley Connector for ArcGIS software supporting workflows spanning AEC and GIS environments.

Alan Farkas of Farkas Berkowitz & Company notes that "water-quality engineering has been and should continue to be the most attractive engineering market segment in the U.S.," with a growth rate of just over 10% per year for the past six years.

Bentley also recently acquired the AXSYS process engineering product line from Aspen Technology. The purchase augments Bentley's plant portfolio by adding AXSYS.Process for evaluating front-end design alternatives, AXSYS.ENGINE for plant lifecycle data management, and AXSYS.Integrity for evaluating life extensions and plant maintenance. Aspen acquired the AXSYS line through its purchase of Hyprotech in 2002. A recent agreement with the U.S. FTC (Federal Trade Commission) requires Aspen to sell those products in the Hyprotech line that overlapped its line at the time of acquisition. Bentley will host an online seminar on August 18 to provide further details on the acquisition at http://www.bentley.com/axsys