Christmas shopping has extended to the telecoms sector, with French IT provider Atos making an offer for digital security company Gemalto and materials specialist Corning acquiring the networking operations of US conglomerate 3M.
Monday’s (11 December) unsolicited offer by Atos values Gemalto at around €4.3 billion or €46 per share.
The French company said it wants to combine its artificial intelligence, big data, high performance computing and cloud orchestration focuses with Gemalto’s identity and access management, data encryption and crypto management technologies.
The IT giant said the combination of portfolios would give the combined company enhanced capabilities in the IoT and M2M space. Another area of focus would be payment services.
Thierry Breton, Chairman and CEO of Atos, said: “Atos has been following closely, and with a lot of interest, the evolution of Gemalto as a leading player in digital cyber security, IoT and payment and has long admired its global presence and strong customer and technology portfolios.
“We believe that a combination of Atos and Gemalto would result in enhanced global leadership in cybersecurity, digital technologies and services and in the strengthening of our positioning as a leading European payment services provider.”
Gemalto responded in a statement saying its board would carefully consider the offer before the deadline of 15 December, with further announcements to be issued “in due course”.
Yesterday also saw Corning, which provides a range of optical fibre technologies as well as components for mobile devices, announce it would purchase the communications business of multinational 3M.
The €900 million deal will give Corning access to 3M’s portfolio of access, wireless and enterprise networking technologies.
The transaction is expected to close in 2018.
Clark Kinlin, EVP at Corning Optical Communications, said: “This transaction expands both our global market reach and our high-bandwidth portfolio. It also provides new co-innovation opportunities and enhances our ability to serve customers globally.”