Listed TransportTech firm Tracsis has acquired limited company Icon Group.
Leeds-based Tracsis provides software, hardware, data analytics and services for the rail, traffic data and wider transport industries.
Headquartered in Dublin and established in 1994, Icon Group is an interdisciplinary geoscience company specialising in earth observation, geographical information system and spatial data analytics.
It has several long-term repeat contracts and employs around 60 full-time staff, all of whom will remain with the business post-transaction as Icon is integrated with Tracsis’ existing data analytics and GIS solutions provider Compass Informatics.
The deal is for an initial cash payment of £1.9 million and Tracsis shares totalling £600,000. An additional payment of approximately £1.7m will be made on completion, while a further £1.5m is payable subject to Icon Group achieving certain stretched financial targets in the three years post acquisition.
Tracsis says it will create an Irish-based data analytics centre of excellence specialising in providing location-related technologies and analytics solutions and services to government and commercial organisations.
The combined Irish business will have around 130 staff and will work across a variety of sectors deriving most of its revenue from regulated industries including transportation, asset management, environmental and utilities.
For the year ended 31st December 2020, Icon Group generated revenue of £2.8 million, profit of £800,000 and had net assets of £2.9m. The business is debt free and has a history of stable organic growth.
“We are delighted to have completed this transaction which extends the group’s existing capabilities in data analytics and GIS into earth observation and strengthens our ability to deliver leading edge projects to clients in Ireland, the UK and across the European Union,” said Tracsis CEO Chris Barnes.
“This is an important milestone in our strategy of growing our ‘big data’ service offering across a range of regulated industries including transportation. We welcome the Icon Group team to Tracsis and look forward to future successes together.”
Tom McHugh, founder and CEO of Icon Group, commented: “The Icon Group, one of Ireland’s largest processor of earth observation data, has been a trusted supplier of EO and GIS services to longstanding clients in Ireland, and delivers work critical to regulatory compliance on subsidy schemes paying out €1.6 billion per annum using EO and GIS tools.
“We look forward to significantly adding to the spatial data analytics capability of Tracsis and Compass Informatics.”