The group Safran has entered into exclusive negotiations with the American Fund Advent International, owner of Oberthur Technologies for the sale of its Identity and Security subsidiary, ex-Morpho. Several candidates were in the running.
But why would they want to sell that division which is specialized in biometric identification (finger prints, iris and facial recognition) when the security sector is booming?
Philippe Petitcolin, chief executive officer – Safran group:« It’s true that the security sector is booming with an average yearly growth of 7%. However, inside those 7%, there are segments that we are very well positioned in, such as ID documents or police security that only grow by about 1 or 2% a year. Alongside this, the segments of IT security and digital security are growing at about 20% a year. This is not a field that we in for the moment and so the Board decided that it wasn’t a good idea for our teams to be launched in to a field that is totally new. »
Oberthur Technologies on the other hand are market leaders in digital security. They excel in this field and with this buyout, will become a world leader for identification technologies. The sale will bring in 2,4 billion Euros and should be finalised in 2017.
