[London, ENGLAND] German Internet security specialist
DICA Technologies AG
announced Tuesday its merger with U.K. Internet server
appliance supplier Equiinet Ltd.
DICA Technologies will acquire all of all of Equiinet’s
stock in an all-share deal, turning Equiinet into a wholly-owned
subsidiary, operating from the U.K. as DICA Technologies Ltd.
Dr. Hartmut Ilse, founder of DICA Technologies, said the
two companies complemented each other perfectly, both in
terms of the products they offer and the markets they
serve.
Equiinet’s Bob Jones, chairman and founder of the company
that has become the market leader in the U.K. despite hot
competition from Network Appliance and other U.S. companies,
said the merger made “perfect sense.”
“We can cross-sell our complementary product lines to each
other’s existing customer-base, which we have worked so hard
to establish,” said Jones.
With sales relations in over 40 countries worldwide, DICA
will add substantially to Equiinet’s sales and marketing
of the NetPilot range of Internet server appliances. In turn,
DICA brings a hardware-based encryption product, sold under
the ScryptGuard brand, which encrypts each e-mail sent over
the Internet.
Prior to the merger, the two companies had revenues of
US $8.5 million in 1999. Significantly, DICA posted a
revenue growth rate of 142 percent during 1998/99 and
expects to maintain high growth following its acquisition
of Equiinet.
Stefan Gieseler, DICA’s chief executive officer in charge
of sales and marketing, said he could foresee “a great
equity story for shareholders” as a result of the merger.
“With our newly developed ScryptGuard… we provide a unique
solution for small and medium enterprises which puts us on
a fast track to exploit the enormous potential of our target
Internet Security market, with an estimated total volume of
over 6 billion euros,” said Gieseler.
DICA Technologies is no stranger to mergers, having been
formed originally by the 1998 merger of Germany’s DTM
Data TeleMark GmbH and Promptus Communications, Inc., of
Rhode Island. Outside of Europe and North America it has
subsidiaries in Venezuela and Australia.