Amadeus’ planned acquisition of IDEMIA Public Security has been years in the making.
Many years ago, Advent International acquired Oberthur with the intent to sell it at a profit.
But Advent wanted to beef it up.
Meanwhile, Safran wanted to sell a chunk of itself to concentrate on its…(long pause)…transportation business.
The resulting combination was initially named OT MORPHO. It was subsequently renamed IDEMIA.
Fast forward to 2022, when Reuters speculated that Advent was about to sell IDEMIA. I wrote about this twice at the time (one, two)…but in the end nothing happened.
Then Advent went to plan C.
- Plan A was to buy Oberthur and sell it.
- Plan B was to combine Oberthur with Morpho and sell it.
- Plan C became to split IDEMIA into three chunks—biometric product marketing experts call this a “trifurcation”—and sell the three chunks individually.
The first chunk moved forward in 2024, when IDEMIA entered negotiations to sell IDEMIA Smart Identity to IN Groupe. These negotiations were successful.
This did not include my former part of IDEMIA, IDEMIA Public Security.
Fast forward two years, when a Spanish company made its intentions known.
“29 April 2026, 8am CEST: Following a competitive bid process, Amadeus today announces its intention to acquire IDEMIA Public Security (IPS), a leading biometrics and identity services provider headquartered in France….It will follow Amadeus’ 2024 acquisition of Vision-Box.”
Now nothing is signed yet, and government approvals will take some time. (I know.) Amadeus’ current estimate is mid 2027, but this could slip.
So I will spend the time watching music videos.
Bredemarket 