The private equity fund Advent is in negotiations to sell Idemia, according to Les Echos.
According to the daily, the fund has mandated Rothschild and Goldman Sachs for the sale. The sale price could be between E5 billion and E6 billion, or 9x to 11x 2022 EBITDA.
An a priori low multiple for this type of asset, which can be explained by the very strong rebound in Idemia's earnings in 2022 (+25%), as well as by the lower valuation of the payment activities (bankcards) than that of the biometrics activities," indicates Invest Securities.
According to Les Echos, several private equity funds are interested in the acquisition, including Apollo, Veritas, Brookfield and CVC, as well as industrial groups such as NEC, Assa Abloy and HID Global. Thales would also be interested in the deal, ' but the group would face competition issues after acquiring Gemalto at the end of 2017 and would not wish to acquire Idemia's Payment activities ' indicates Invest Securities.
' As a reminder, Advent had acquired Oberthur in 2011 for E1.15bn and Morpho for E2.4bn in 2016 (Idemia is the structure born of the merger between Oberthur and Safran's security activities: Morpho). Faced with a pressurized banking environment, Advent is said to have obtained 2.5MdE in acquisition financing from Goldman Sachs," adds the research firm.
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Thales is one of the European leaders in manufacturing and marketing of electronic equipment and systems for the defense and security, aerospace, and transportation sectors. Net sales break down by product group as follows:
- defense and security systems (53.4%): C4I defense and security systems (control and monitoring systems, communication, protection, cyber-security, and other systems), defense mission systems, naval systems, electronic war systems, drones, air operation systems (air defense, air surveillance), ground defense systems and missiles;
- aerospace systems (28.4%): avionics equipment (cockpit, cabin multimedia, and simulation equipment), space systems (satellites, payloads, etc.);
- digital identification and security solutions (18.2%).
Besides, the group owns a 35% stake in Naval Group (manufacture of naval equipment for defense and nuclear energy sectors).
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: France (29.5%), the United Kingdom (6.6%), Europe (24.8%), the United States and Canada (14%), Asia (9.4%), Near and Middle East (6%), Australia and New Zealand (4.4%) and other (5.3%).
THALES 
