CVC to Buy Technology Firm Linxens

Buyout firm CVC Capital Partners has agreed to buy French technology company Linxens for €1.5 billion ($1.66 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.

CVC pre-empted an auction process for the company, run by French private-equity firm Astorg Partners, some of the people said. An announcement could come as early as Wednesday, the people added.

Linxens, which was bought by Astorg in 2011, creates smart-card connectors that are used in products like London's Oyster card, a prepaid travel card and Hong Kong's Octopus card, a stored-value smart card for making electronic payments.

Connectors are a component in smart cards. They are used in banking cards, SIM cards for mobile phones and electronic identification cards and allow communication between a smart card and an electronic reader. Linxens also builds what is known as dual-face connectors, enabling wireless communication between a smart card and the electronic reader.

The company had sales of €253 million in 2014.

CVC recently has been on a buying spree in Europe. In the past month, the buyout firm bought Alvogen, an Icelandic pharmaceutical company; Stage Entertainment, a Dutch musical and theater group; and Douglas, a German perfume and cosmetics retailer.

Those deals come despite a general slowdown in private-equity deals, especially in Europe. Global private-equity deal entries were down around 35% to $102.2 billion so far this year from the year-earlier period, according to Dealogic.

Write to Shayndi Raice at [e-mail]

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