Aerospace and defence group Thales has agreed to buy digital security company Gemalto, exceeding a bid by fellow French firm Atos.
Thales’ all-cash bid has the unanimous backing of both companies’ boards, Thales and Gemalto said in an earlier statement.
The agreement calls for Thales’ digital activities to be merged with Gemalto to create a business with €3.5bn in sales, which would become a top-three global player in digital security, they said.
Christophe Castaner, Secretary of State for Parliamentary Relations in the French government, said the deal was “in the right direction”.
Thales and Gemalto said their digital security entity would generate cost synergies of between €100m and €150m by 2021.
The deal, expected to close in the second half of 2018, would have a positive effect on earnings per share of 15-20%, before synergies, from the first year, they said.
Thales did not expect job losses from the takeover and pledged to maintain current job levels at Gemalto’s French operations until at least the end of 2019.
However, union officials at Gemalto cautioned that the announcement did not refer to the struggling chip card activity.
