Cross Match to go public
Biometrics heavyweight plans to raise $225 million to pay down debts and assist in future acquisitions
It’s been a good year for Palm Beach Gardens, Florida-based Cross Match. As we reported, the company won German approval for its ePassport finger-scanner, made strides in mobile fingerprinting in Iraq, and expanded its presence in the casino security market. We were not the only ones paying attention. Cross Match announced this week that it would go public on the Nasdaq in hopes of raising $225 million. The move is intended to help pay down debt and assist in potential future acquisitions. (In 2005, Cross Match acquired Jena, Germany-based Smiths Heimann Biometrics GmbH, a provider of palm print devices.) Last year, the company posted a loss of $11.3 million, compared with a loss of $4.9 million in 2005, and reported an accumulated deficit at year end of $54 million. Revenues increased 66.5 percent from $46.2 million in 2005 to $76.9 million in 2006, but a large portion of that is attributed to Cross Match’s acquisition of Smiths Heimann, the Sun Sentinel reported.
