Member Article

VASCO Enters Agreement to Acquire Silanis

VASCO Data Security International, Inc., announced the execution of a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Silanis Technology, Inc., a leading provider of electronic signature (e-signature) and digital transaction solutions used to sign, send and manage documents. Silanis’ e-SignLive™ platform is trusted by some of the largest banks, insurers and government agencies. The acquisition demonstrates VASCO’s strong commitment to its vision of delivering new solutions that are in high demand within its financial services customer base, accelerating its transition to a recurring revenue model, strengthening its revenue base in North America, and expanding its customer base outside of its core banking business.

VASCO anticipates significant revenue synergies from the acquisition. Both VASCO and Silanis are focused on addressing the business needs of organisations conducting secure transactions that must meet strict regulatory and compliance requirements. VASCO has identified demand for digital transaction solutions among its customer base and, following the closing of the transaction, can immediately start selling Silanissolutions to its global banking customers. The banking segment is Silanis’ number one vertical.

“In Silanis, we have found a company with incredible technology and solutions that have emerging demand among our vast customer base,“ stated T. Kendall Hunt, Chairman and CEO of VASCO. “Silanis’ offering is consistent with our focus on authentication and fraud prevention. We see the potential to accelerate growth in a rapidly expanding new market while still maintaining our commitment to our core offering. Given that Silanis focuses on generating recurring revenue through a Software-as-a-Service model, we expect that it will be a significant factor in helping VASCO grow its operating income, both on an absolute basis as well as a percentage of revenue.“

Silanis, based in Montreal, Canada, utilises a SaaS and on-premise subscription model for its customers who are located primarily in North America. Silanis expects to report revenues,determined under Canadian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, of approximately USD $16 million for the full-year 2015, an increase of approximately 30% over full-year 2014. Based on bookings of new business through the third quarter of 2015, which were up more than 200% over the comparable period in 2014, Silanis is projecting that its revenues for 2016, on a stand alone basis, will increase more than 25% over 2015.

Craig Le Clair, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, reports a 53% average annual growth in the use of e-signatures since 2012 with the number of transactions settled using e-signatures topping 210 million and likely to reach more than 700 million in 2017. “A recent directive passed by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union promises to solidify and promote e-signature adoption across the region,“ reported Mr. Le Clair. “Mobile transactions will push e-signature authentication to the device, with Europe leading the way in innovation.“ VASCO believes that its strength in mobile security combined with the ability to complete a legally enforceable transaction with e-signatures will provide organisations a pathway to increase the number of transactions completed on mobile devices.

e-SignLive, Silanis’ e-signature solution, delivers distinct advantages over competing solutions including the following:

- The ability to completely white-label the e-signature process for a seamless and branded experience to ensure the highest adoption rates.

- The most complete audit trails in the market, providing organisations with direct visibility into how and when the digital transaction took place.

- A unified platform that supports cloud, on-premise, and hybrid deployment options.

- Data centres around the globe that will help customers meet regulatory and in-country data residency requirements.

- Enterprise-grade solutions that can be easily deployed across an organisation’s internal, business-to-business and customer-facing applications.

“By combining the strengths of both companies, we have created an opportunity to significantly enhance our ability to address rising global market demand for Silanis’ solutions. The demand for our solutions is driven by their strong ROI and end customers’ expectations to complete business transactions digitally,“ stated Tommy Petrogiannis, CEO & Co-Founder of Silanis. “By taking advantage of our recently announced global data centres, we can accelerate revenue growth by reducing the time required to implement solutions for banks and other regulated organisations outside of North America that require compliant signing solutions.“

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, VASCO will acquire all of the outstanding equity of Silanis for a cash consideration of $85 million, subject to customary closing conditions. The acquisition will be financed from VASCO’s existing cash balances. The acquisition is expected to be dilutive in 2016, on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis, which would exclude the amortisation of purchased intangible assets. The acquisition is expected to be accretive in 2017 on a non-GAAP basis. Subject to a closing blackout period from December 1 through December 31, 2015, VASCO and Silanis will use commercially reasonable efforts to cause the closing to occur as soon as practicable, but in any event by January 31, 2016 or such other date as the Parties may agree to in writing.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Pete Jackson .