Italy's Leonardo becomes biggest shareholder of Finland's SSH with stake purchase
HELSINKI (Reuters) -Italy's Leonardo will buy a 24.55% stake in Finland's SSH, making it the latter's biggest shareholder as it expands its cyber security business with this new strategic partnership, the companies announced on Tuesday.
The Italian aerospace and defence group sees cyber security as key for its development and expects double-digit growth in it in the coming years.
The chair of Leonardo, Stefano Pontecorvo, told Reuters recently that the cyber security arena has become essential in new, interconnected multi-domain warfare systems, underscoring the strategic significance of the acquisition.
The deal, subject to conditions, consists of a 20 million euro share issue by SSH to Leonardo, after which Leonardo would be SSH's largest shareholder, SSH said. The current largest owner, Accendo Capital, will continue to hold 20.87%.
SSH offers technologies for securing activities in hybrid cloud environments, including quantum-safe encryption.
"The agreement combines SSH's technological expertise with Leonardo's technologies and solutions, advanced assets and services, and domain-specific knowledge," Leonardo's Chief Executive Roberto Cingolani said in a statement.
The initiative represents a significant step towards the development of a 'Made in Europe' Zero Trust ecosystem, Leonardo said, referring to a cyber security approach in which no one can be trusted with access to data.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Giulia Segreti in Rome;Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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