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

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

and was a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is the United Kingdom's best-known stock market index of the 100 most highly capitalised blue chips listed on ...

. It was acquired by

Schlumberger Schlumberger (), doing business as SLB, is a global multinational oilfield services company. Founded in France in 1926, the company is now incorporated as Schlumberger NV in Willemstad, Curaçao, with principal executive offices in Houston ...

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. ...

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

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

established the BAeSEMA 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 British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

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 Rail transport in Great Britain, railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely compl ...

. 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 owned b ...

, 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

and was renamed SchlumbergerSema. In 2004 the bulk of the company was sold on to Atos Origin. The messaging unit was merged with Taral Networks and spun off as Airwide Solutions. The Smart Card and Terminal Department (formerly part of Schlumberger Test & Transactions) became Axalto, which later merged with Gemplus International to form

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

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