Sema Group plc was an Anglo-French IT services company. It was listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Schlumberger in 2001.

History

The Company was founded in 1988 by the merger of the British

CAP Group CAP Group was a British software house. Computer Analysts and Programmers Ltd (CAP) was founded in May 1962 and grew to be one of the foremost IT companies in the UK before merging with French company Sema-Metra in 1988 to form Sema Group. H ...

and the French company, Sema-Metra SA. In 1991 Sema and

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marcon ...

established the

BAeSEMA BAeSEMA was a naval technology joint venture between British Aerospace and the French Sema Group. The company was formed in 1991 and dissolved in November 1998 when BAe purchased SEMA's 50% share. BAeSEMA acquired Dowty-Sema in 1992, another naval ...

naval systems joint venture to produce naval systems: it was dissolved in November 1998 when BAe purchased Sema's 50% share for £77 million. By December 1991 Sema had acquired the Cambridge-based consultancy Baddeley Associates, from which it created Sema Group Consulting. In 1997, Sema acquired British Rail Business Systems for £27m which was sold off by the UK Government as part of the

Privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

. In the same time frame, Sema also acquired Syntax in Italy, formerly the IT Services division of

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been par ...

, adding another important market to its geography. In 2000, Sema acquired LHS for €5.1 billion to access its US telecoms software and services businesses: some analysts blamed the LHS acquisition for a profits warning in 2000 and a 45% fall in its stock market valuation. In 2001, Sema Group plc was acquired by Schlumberger and was renamed SchlumbergerSema. In 2004 the bulk of the company was sold on to

Atos Origin Atos is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communications, cloud, big data and ...

. The messaging unit was merged with Taral Networks and spun off as

Airwide Solutions Airwide Solutions was a privately held (majority shareholder smac, partners Germany), but United States–based mobile messaging and wireless internet infrastructure company. It was acquired by Mavenir Systems in May 2011. The company was founde ...

. The Smart Card and Terminal Department (formerly part of Schlumberger Test & Transactions) became

Axalto {{Infobox company , name = Axalto , logo = , type = Public , founded = 2004 (IPO) , location = Paris, FranceBeijing, ChinaSingapore , key_people = Olivier Piou, CEO , products = Smart Cards , ...

, which later merged with

Gemplus International Gemalto was an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, and managed services. It was formed in June 2006 by the merger of two companies, Axalto and Gemplus In ...

to form

Gemalto Gemalto was an international digital security company providing software applications, secure personal devices such as smart cards and tokens, and managed services. It was formed in June 2006 by the merger of two companies, Axalto and Gemplus ...

Operations

Sema was registered in the United Kingdom but headquartered in Paris. Sema originally stood for Société d'Économétrie et de Mathématiques Appliquées.

References

{{Authority control Defunct companies of France Defunct companies of the United Kingdom Software companies established in 1988 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange 2001 mergers and acquisitions fr:Sema Group