Defense and security company BAE Systems plc (BA.L) Friday announced a deal to acquire financial crime and compliance solutions provider Norkom Group plc for approximately 217 million euros or about US$290.69 million in cash.
Norkom, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, provides solutions to counter financial crime in the financial services industry. The company's software solutions enable financial organizations to detect and combat financial crime, control defenses and evolve strategies against fraud, money laundering and other types of financial crime.
With operations and offices across Continental Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, Norkom has a client base of over 100 customers, which includes six of the top ten financial services organizations in the world. For the year ended on March 31, 2010, the company reported a pre-tax profit on ordinary activities of 7.5 million euros on revenues of 49.3 million euros.
Under the terms of the offer, Norkom shareholders will receive 2.10 euros per share in cash for each Norkom share they own. The offer represents a premium of approximately 36% to Norkom's closing share price of 1.54 euros on January 13, the last business day prior to the date of this announcement.
The offer also represents a premium of approximately 121% to Norkom's closing share price of 0.95 euros on November 25, 2010, the last business day prior to the commencement of the offer period. Norkom's board unanimously recommended its shareholders to accept the offer.
The cash consideration payable by BAE Systems Holdings (BAE's subsidiary) under the terms of the offer is to be funded using BAE Systems' existing cash resources.
In a separate announcement, BAE Systems today said that the offer has been accepted by Norkom shareholders who own about 44.9% or 46.39 million shares of the entire issued share capital of the company. This has satisfied the pre-condition to the offer regarding the receipt of irrevocable undertakings.
Commenting on the offer, Ian King, chief executive officer of BAE Systems, said, "The combination will result in a significantly enhanced offering for customers and present an opportunity for accelerated growth for the BAE Systems Group in the fast growing cyber and intelligence services sector."
In 2008, BAE Systems Holdings acquired business IT consulting services provider Detica Group plc, including its Detica NetReveal product, which helped BAE Systems to establish a position in the counter-fraud software business. Now, the Norkom acquisition will offer the company a complementary technology with anti-money laundering software and a global client base in financial services.
The acquisition will also offer attractive cross-selling opportunities for Detica and Norkom's products along with cost benefits from the shared investment in product development, sales and marketing.
BAE Systems said it currently has no plans to change the main locations of Norkom's places of business, re-deploy its fixed assets or to materially the change conditions of the employment of Norkom's employees. When the offer is declared unconditional in all respects, the non-executive directors of Norkom intend to resign from its board.
BA.L is trading at 342.60 pence on the LSE, down 3 pence or 0.87%, on a volume of 6.46 million shares.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.