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EU: Thales’ €4.8B Gemalto takeover approved with divestments

By  |  December 12, 2018

The European Commission has approved the €4.8 billion (US$5.6 billion) takeover of Gemalto by France’s defense multinational Thales Group, despite initial fears it would lead to a monopoly in the hardware security module (HSM) market.

An HSM is a dedicated crypto processor used to secure cryptographic keys and support encryption, decryption, authentication, and digital signing services.

Thales and the Netherlands’ Gemalto are the world’s two largest HSM producers and provide them to customers including major cloud services providers and leading banks.

The European Commission said the sale of nShield, Thales’ global general purpose HSM business, addressed competition concerns.

Full Content: Reuters

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