The Japanese industrial conglomerate Hitachi announced Wednesday, August 4 that it had entered into exclusive negotiations with the French Thales to buy its activity in railway signaling systems, for an enterprise value of 1.66 billion euros.
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The final price of the transaction will be set at a later date, and the transaction is expected to be finalized by early 2023, subject to the approval of the relevant regulatory authorities, Hitachi said in a statement.
Thales's
global “
Land Transport Systems
” (GTS) activity generated sales of € 1.6 billion in 2020, or around 10% of the French group's total sales. Established in 42 countries, this division has three headquarters in Germany, France and Canada and has 9,000 employees.
"
With this important strategic move, we will be able to focus on the development of three major high-tech activities with long-term growth
" and capable of generating "
double-digit
"
margins
, underlined Thales CEO Patrice Caine, quoted in a separate press release from the French group.
Thales intends to focus on three major markets: aerospace, defense and security, and the digital security sector.
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Hitachi, for its part, is already an integrated global giant in the rail industry, but GTS will offer it a geographical presence complementary to its own in this segment (Japan, Italy, United Kingdom and United States), and should also enable it accelerate the digital transformation of its activities in the field.
