SAFRAN through Sagem Sécurité, its wholly owned subsidiary and a world leader in ID solutions based on biometrics, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the biometric business unit within Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), which includes its Printrak trademark. The acquisition has been approved by Motorola and SAFRAN.

Motorola’s biometric business unit, headquartered in Anaheim, California, USA, designs, develops, integrates and maintains automated fingerprint identification systems (“AFIS”) for law enforcement, civil and commercial customers around the world. The firm serves national, state, county and municipal agencies internationally and provides integration solutions and systems for more than 300 customers in 40 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Jean-Paul Herteman, CEO of SAFRAN said, “This acquisition enables Sagem Sécurité to strengthen its position in the US market for homeland security where it is already committed to offer world-class identification solutions to government, state and local markets. This acquisition is a continuation of SAFRAN’s long history of investing in the US. It is also an important step in our plan to improve our product offering, expand production in the US, and reduce costs.”

Jean-Paul Jainsky, CEO of Sagem Sécurité added, “Through this acquisition, Sagem Sécurité, its existing customers, and Motorola’s existing biometrics customers are expected to benefit from increased efficiencies and customer responsiveness from the merger of the two businesses.”

“Biometrics is a very dynamic business that we believe requires companies to specialize in the technology,” said Gene Delaney, president, Government & Public Safety, Motorola. “To best serve our customers and employees, Motorola made a judgment that we need to concentrate and lead in our area of strength – delivering best-in-class mission critical communications solutions for government, public safety and commercial customers.”

The transaction is targeted to close first quarter of 2009 at the latest and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Image courtesy of Motorola.com, used only for illustration of a Motorola product or business.

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