Idemia on the block with €6B price tag: report

One of the world’s leading biometrics providers and digital identity system integrators, Idemia, is on the block, with a price-tag of 6 billion euros (approximately US$6.47 billion).

A memo on the prospective sale has been sent by Advent, which owns a majority stake in Idemia, to candidate funds and manufacturers, according to French language publication Les Echos, as translated by Google.

Offers are expected to begin rolling in on April 18, the report says.

Advent recently enlisted Goldman Sachs to put together a financing package for a prospective deal, and the new report suggests that Rothschild is also involved.

Idemia was created by Advent through the €1.15 billion purchase of Oberthur in 2011, and the €2.4 billion acquisition of Safran Identity in 2016.

The company has annual turnover of €2.6 billion ($2.8 billion) and an Ebitda of €550 million, both well up from a year earlier, leading to speculation that it will be valuated at between €5 billion and €6 billion.

The Les Echos report notes that analysts consider biometrics a higher-growth area, and therefore worth more multiples, than Idemia’s payments business.

Selling both sides of the business as a package could take Thales out of the running, analysts say, due to likely challenges from competition regulators.

Private equity firms Veritas and CVC are rumored as potential suitors, along with Apollo and Brookfield, both of which have come up before. Should Advent split the company, NEC, Sweden’s Assa Abloy, or its American subsidiary HID Global could join Thales among bidders, according to the report.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  Advent International  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  IDEMIA