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Safran board to meet to narrow bids for Morpho business

Reuters - UK Focus

PARIS, June 29 (Reuters) - The board of French aerospace group Safran (LSE: 0IU8.L - news) will meet on Thursday to make a preliminary selection from a dozen offers for its Morpho biometrics and security business, sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Safran, which is focusing on its aerospace business and offloading others, declined to comment, although Chief Executive Philippe Petitcolin said last week that it planned to narrow down the bids for Morpho and then carry out a second round of an auction in the autumn.

The company agreed in April to sell its U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) .-based Morpho Detection business and related activities to UK engineering firm Smiths Group (Other OTC: SMGKF - news) for an enterprise value of $710 million.

French SIM card maker Gemalto (LSE: 0OGA.L - news) has expressed interest in the additional assets being sold by Safran, while private equity fund Advent wants to acquire Safran's biometric identification business and merge it with security badge maker Oberthur Technologies, which it bought in 2011.

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French IT services company Atos (Paris: FR0000051732 - news) , and private equity firms KKR, Carlyle, Bain Capital and CVC (Taiwan OTC: 4744.TWO - news) Capital Partners are also seen as potential candidates for the business, which had 1.6 billion euros of revenue last year.

The French government, which owns 15.4 percent of Safran, is closely watching the auction, one source said. (Reporting by Cyril Altmeyer; Writing by Tim Hepher; Editing by Alexander Smith)