Thales, Gemalto Get South African Approval for Merger

Just a week after pushing back the anticipated close of their merger deal, Thales and Gemalto have announced that they’ve obtained another regulatory clearance needed for the project.

The latest is from South Africa’s Competition Commission, the seventh of 15 approvals needed from regulatory authorities around the world in order for Thales to proceed with its acquisition of Gemalto. Other clearances already attained have come from antitrust authorities in China, Israel, and Turkey, and foreign investment regulators in Australia, Canada, and the US.

Thales and Gemalto had previously expected their merger to conclude by August 15th, but attained an extension for the deadline from Dutch financial market authorities after the European Commission announced it would investigate antitrust concerns pertaining to the companies’ combined share of the Hardware Security Modules market. While the deadline was extended to March 31st of 2019, the companies said they still expected to acquire all needed regulatory approvals by the end of this year. Their tone changed last week, when they announced that they now expect the deal to close in Q1 of next year.

In their new announcement concerning the South African regulatory approval, Thales and Gemalto reiterated that they “continue to work constructively” with regulatory authorities concerning the outstanding approvals.