Buyout firm CVC Capital Partners has agreed to buy French
technology company Linxens for €1.5 billion ($1.66 billion),
according to people familiar with the matter.
CVC pre-empted an auction process for the company, run by French
private-equity firm Astorg Partners, some of the people said. An
announcement could come as early as Wednesday, the people
added.
Linxens, which was bought by Astorg in 2011, creates smart-card
connectors that are used in products like London's Oyster card, a
prepaid travel card and Hong Kong's Octopus card, a stored-value
smart card for making electronic payments.
Connectors are a component in smart cards. They are used in
banking cards, SIM cards for mobile phones and electronic
identification cards and allow communication between a smart card
and an electronic reader. Linxens also builds what is known as
dual-face connectors, enabling wireless communication between a
smart card and the electronic reader.
The company had sales of €253 million in 2014.
CVC recently has been on a buying spree in Europe. In the past
month, the buyout firm bought Alvogen, an Icelandic pharmaceutical
company; Stage Entertainment, a Dutch musical and theater group;
and Douglas, a German perfume and cosmetics retailer.
Those deals come despite a general slowdown in private-equity
deals, especially in Europe. Global private-equity deal entries
were down around 35% to $102.2 billion so far this year from the
year-earlier period, according to Dealogic.
Write to Shayndi Raice at shayndi.raice@wsj.com
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