Pinned straw:
Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood, Emma Rapaport
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It looks as though Austal wasn’t the only ASX-listed defence outfit being scoped out by overseas interests. Tesserent, the country’s largest listed cybersecurity company, is set to sell itself to French defence giant Thales.
The 13¢-a-share bid is a 165 per cent premium to Tesserent’s last closing price of 4.6¢ and has been unanimously recommended by the board. The takeover is subject to approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.
The offer values Tesserent at $176 million.
Thales is already a big player in cybersecurity, and generated sales of some €1.5 billion ($2.4 billion) last year in that segment. In Australia, the Paris-listed group employs about 3800 staff across all its divisions.