Gemalto files cash bid for Wavecom

Sharon

Sharon Gill

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7th October 2008

Gemalto, has made an all-cash offer of €7 per share to Wavecom's shareholders and €20 per convertible bond (OCEANE) to bond holders.

Gemalto also intends to file a similar offer in the US, including holders of Wavecom American Depositary Shares.

The deal would expand Gemalto's business in the growing M2M market, and is a natural extension of Gemalto's core business.

According to Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou, M2M is an attractive and growing market with the opportunity to connect billions of devices, and Wavecom is at the forefront of this industry.

Gemalto will provide Wavecom with the scale and resources to capture the full growth potential of M2M and give its employees a truly global reach and working environment.

With more than 85 offices in forty countries, Gemalto posted revenues in excess of €1.6 billion in 2007. The company's 10,000-strong workforce includes 1,300 R&D engineers.

Gemalto provides end-to-end digital security solutions, from the development of software applications through design and production of secure personal devices such as smart cards, subscribers' ID modules (SIMs), e-passports and tokens to the deployment of managed services for its customers.

More than a billion people worldwide use the Gemalto's products and services for telecommunications, financial services, e-government, ID management, multimedia content, digital rights management, IT security, mass transit and many other applications.