Entrust to Acquire nCipher Security to Approve Gemalto Deal

Entrust Datacard has announced a definitive agreement to acquire nCipher Security.

Less than a month after nCipher de-merged from Thales, the deal will see nCipher’s identity-based and PKI security solutions become part of Entrust, enabling Thales to complete its acquisition of Gemalto. Operating as a separate stand-alone business within Thales since January 2019 under the brand “nCipher Security”, nCipher was initially acquired in 2008 by Thales.

The sale of nCipher was necessary after Thales announced its intention to acquire Gemalto, and as part of the regulatory process and in order to obtain regulatory clearances among other agencies and from the European Commission, Thales committed to divest its Thales eSecurity’s nShield business in full to a suitable purchaser.

Todd Wilkinson, president and CEO of Entrust Datacard, said: “This acquisition is an excellent complement to our expertise in both cryptography and hardware and will extend our ability to meet the evolving security needs of our customers globally while allowing us to accelerate our own growth.”

According to Philippe Keryer, executive vice-president, strategy, research and technology at Thales, the deal is expected to close by the end of March 2019.

“We are convinced that nCipher Security will strongly leverage the expertise of Entrust Datacard, an organization focused on their competencies in the development of safe and secure access to information, applications and networks as well as its global presence specifically in Europe and in North America,” he said.