FRANCE: On November 18 Thales announced that it had entered into exclusive negotiations with private equity firm Latour Capital with a view to divesting its transport ticketing, revenue collection, road toll and car park management business. The proposed transaction would not involve Thales’ railway signalling and control activities.
The ticketing and revenue collection systems business generated sales of €155m in 2015, and has around 850 staff mainly located in France, the Netherlands, Mexico, Hong Kong, Denmark and Italy.
Thales said the divestment would be in line with its strategy of ‘permanent business portfolio optimisation’. Its objective is to ‘put in place a business plan to grow the ticketing and revenue collection systems business by building on its existing teams, know-how and capabilities, and by developing innovative technological solutions’.
Paris-based Latour Capital was founded in 2011 and invests an average of between €20m and €60m in buy-out and growth capital transactions in European companies with an enterprise value of between €30m and €200m. It targets the spin-off of non-core subsidiaries of large groups where it sees strong growth potential, specific competitive advantage, international activity and a strong management team.
