HID Global Acquires Australian Card Maker

HID Global has made its latest strategic acquisition, buying secure card maker Placard.

Based in Melbourne, Placard is said to be Australasia’s largest secure card manufacturer, producing more than 100 million cards annually. In Australia, it is the only Secure Plastic Card maker accredited by all of the country’s major schemes.

In a statement announcing the acquisition, HID Global CEO Stefan Widing lauded Placard for its “large installed base of customers in the Australasia region” and explained in broad terms how the benefit will serve HID’s overall strategic interests. “Adding Placard to the HID portfolio would expand our value-add services and enhance our capabilities for trusted identities, while striking the balance between offering a broad range of card solutions and providing customers with the choice of digital IDs as the next wave of the future,” he said.

In a separate statement, HID Global’s parent company ASSA ABLOY, which carried out the acquisition, asserted that Placard’s sales for 2019 are expected to reach AUD 63 million (about USD 42 million) “with a good EBIT margin”, adding that “the acquisition will be accretive to EPS from start.”

This is HID’s second major acquisition in the past month, with the company having announced its acquisition of PKI solutions provider HydrantID in early September. In addition to the strategic benefits laid out by Widing, HID Global also asserted in its latest statement that the acquisition “will enhance HID’s presence in the [Australasian] region.”

Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but HID Global has explained that Placard will be integrated into its Identification Technologies business, headed by VP and Managing Director Marc Bielmann.