Wedoany.com Report-Oct 31 ,Siemens will buy Altair Engineering for $10.6 billion, the American engineering software firm said on Wednesday, as it seeks to strengthen its presence in the fast-growing industrial software market.

The offer price of $113 per share represents a premium of about 18.7% to Altair's closing price on Oct. 21, a day before Reuters first reported that the company was exploring a sale.

The deal for Michigan-based Altair is German company Siemens's biggest acquisition since Siemens Healthineers bought medical device maker Varian Medical Systems for $16.4 million in 2020.

Altair, whose simulation software helps predict how products would work in the real world, fits Siemens's strategy of using its hardware and software to combine the real and digital worlds.

The German maker of trains and factory equipment has been trying to expand beyond its traditional industrial customers by boosting its digital offering to improve the performance of its production lines, trains and buildings.