AFTER MAKING A big move to acquire Yahoo for $4.8 billion last week, mobile phone provider Verizon is back on the acquisition trail and is set to splurge $2.4 billion in cash to buy Dublin-based company Fleetmatics.

Fleetmatics has been a New-York-listed company since 2012 and specialises in developing fleet-management and other mobile-workforce software.

After starting out with less than a dozen people on the books in 2004, the company has has seen its workforce grow to 1,200 people and last month announced it was going on a further hiring drive as it builds a new operations centre in Tallaght.

Speaking about the deal, Fleetmatics chief executive Jim Travers said the deal makes sense for both companies that want to take a larger share of the “extraordinarily large, lightly penetrated, global and fragmented” online fleet-management software market.

Verizon Telematics chief executive Andres Irlando said the acquisition will allow the company to become a leading provider of cloud-based software for mobile workforces of small-sized businesses.

He said that Fleetmatics is market leader in the US and that the acquisition “will position the combined companies to become a leading provider of fleet and mobile workforce management solutions globally”.

Fleetmatics Fleetmatics

Through its subsidiary, Verizon Telematics, the US telecoms giant already has a large foothold in over 40 markets worldwide and provides software and hardware to businesses to keep better track of their vehicles.

Busy acquiring

Verizon has been on a busy acquisition trail in recent months. In addition to its purchase of Yahoo, the telecoms giant recently purchased another business called Telogis, which also specialised in cloud-based software for mobile workforces. However the financials of this deal are unpublished.

Fleetmatics has an estimated 37,000 customers in major English-speaking markets and last year branched out into Italy and France by acquiring smaller rivals in the respective countries.

AP Photo / Mel Evans, File AP Photo / Mel Evans, File / Mel Evans, File

The company was formed as part of a merger between local companies Moviltec and WebSoft and when it went public four years ago it raised $132 million in the process.

Last year the company delivered revenue of nearly $285 million, up almost one-quarter on 2014, for a net income of just under $39 million.

Written by Killian Woods and posted on Fora.ie

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