IAR Systems Acquires Secure Thingz

With The Acquisition, IAR Systems Secures Its Position As A Frontrunner In Offering Solutions For Security In Embedded Systems

The Swedish company IAR Systems Group AB (“IAR Systems”) has today entered into a share sale and purchase agreement to acquire 100 percent of the shares in Secure Thingz, Inc. (“Secure Thingz”), a provider of advanced security solutions for embedded systems in the Internet of Things (IoT). With the acquisition, IAR Systems secures its position as a frontrunner in offering solutions for security in embedded systems.

The transaction

Previously, IAR Systems has acquired approximately 20 percent of the shares in Secure Thingz. With today’s acquisition, IAR Systems will, at completion of the transaction, own 100 percent of the shares in Secure Thingz. The purchase price for the remaining 80 percent amount to approximately 230 MSEK. The purchase price includes a share issue in kind of 125,000 class B shares to Secure Thingz’ founder and newly appointed CEO, Haydn Povey, and a rollover of an existing stock option program for the employees in Secure Thingz. The share issue in kind to Haydn Povey will be resolved by the board pursuant to the authorization granted at the Annual General Meeting held in 2017. The rollover of the existing stock option program is conditional upon approval by the shareholders of IAR Systems, and the company intends to invite shareholders to an extraordinary general meeting within a short time period.

Completion of the transaction is expected to occur on April 11, 2018.

IAR Systems Group intends to finance the acquisition either with support from a credit facility or by a directed share issue. Both these options, as well as a combination of them, are at the board’s disposal for financing the acquisition. In the third quarter of 2017, IAR Systems Group expanded its credit limit by SEK 200 million for the purpose of increasing the flexibility to act in connection with acquisitions. The board has engaged a financial advisor to evaluate the possibility of conducting a directed share issue of class B shares.

Secure Thingz

Secure Thingz was founded in 2016 by staff with extensive experience from Arm®, the leading processor architecture provider. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, and has an office in San José, California. Secure Thingz develops and sells products and services for implementation of embedded security in connected devices. The company has provided security solutions for the development platform Renesas Synergy™ Platform through its Secure Deploy™ platform offerings, which is developed in order to solve the major security challenges faced by companies developing for the IoT.

A renowned security expert and an Executive Board Member of the IoT Security Foundation, the company’s founder Haydn Povey has held senior management roles at leading global technology companies for over 20 years, including more than 10 years within marketing and business development at Arm. He most recently headed Arm’s strategy for security across mobile, enterprise and IoT domains, where he among other things worked with groups within the US and UK governments responsible for the development and deployment of security frameworks. Previously, Haydn Poveyled the development and introduction of the Arm Cortex®-M microprocessor family, which now dominates the embedded and IoT-markets and whose large market impact enabled the rapid adoption of 32-bit microcontroller technology around the globe. Haydn Povey will continue to operate Secure Thingz as CEO.

Secure Thingz is in an early phase and so far shows a limited historic turn-over. For 2017, the company declared net sales of 0.5 MUSD and an operating loss of 1.8 MUSD.