Nice to grow through strategic acquisitions

Nice Systems, an Israeli video surveillance company, plans to acquire more companies to increase sales next year, focusing on the security market. The company’s systems are already installed at the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty. The company completed three acquisitions this year for more than $235 million. Nice controls about 40 percent of the contact-center market, which contributes about 75 percent of the company’s sales. The rest of the company sales come from the security market, in which Nice sells monitoring systems to transportation and public safety organizations such as the New York Fire Department and Philadelphia police.

The company expects its revenue to grow by a third this year, as call centers upgrade to include Internet phone calls and homeland security spending increases globally. Nice has forecast a 20 percent increase in sales in 2007. The company’s stock has gained 21 percent this year, compared with a 14 percent gain for the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s benchmark TA-25 index.

Nice announced several security contracts in the transportation industry this year: It is installing video surveillance systems in Beijing subway stations in preparation for the 2008 summer Olympics; it has won an order from New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority for a system to monitor voice communications; and it has signed a follow-on contract helping to secure the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Nice spent $12 million in the third quarter on in-house development, up from $7.8 million in the previous year. Company leaders said that the company’s acquisition team will focus on the security industry, in which Nice offers voice systems for services such as the 911 emergency call service in the United States, video analysis for sensitive sites such as airports, and advanced communication recording system for the public safety market.

-read more in Gwen Ackerman’s Jerusalem Post report