Geoscience company acquired by listed transport software firm

Tracsis, which provides software, hardware, data analytics and services for the rail, traffic data and wider transport industries, has acquired the entire issued share capital of Icon Group Limited.

Headquartered in Dublin and established in 1994, Icon Group is a 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.

Icon Group will be integrated with Leeds-based Tracsis’ existing Data Analytics/Geographical Information System solutions provider – Compass Informatics.

This 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 acquisition of Icon Group adds Earth Observation capabilities that enhance the Group’s offering in this growing market, and has a customer base that is complementary to Tracsis’.

The combined Irish business will have about 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 31 December 2020, Icon Group generated revenue of £2.8m, pre-tax profits of £0.8m, and had net assets of £2.9m.

The acquisition consideration comprises an initial cash payment of £1.9m which will be funded out of Tracsis cash reserves and the issue of 68,762 new ordinary shares in Tracsis plc to a value of £0.6m.

An additional payment of approximately £1.7m will be made on a euro for euro basis to reflect the net current asset position of the business (above a working capital hurdle) at completion and will be finalised in due course.

Additional contingent consideration of up to £1.5m is payable subject to Icon Group achieving certain stretched financial targets in the three years post acquisition.

Chris Barnes, Tracsis chief executive officer, said: “We are delighted to have completed this transaction which extends the Group’s existing capabilities in Data Analytics and GIS into Earth Observation (EO) and strengthens our ability to deliver leading edge projects to clients in Ireland, the UK and across the European Union.

“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, said: “The Icon Group, one of Ireland’s largest processor of Earth Observation (EO) 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 €1.6bn per annum using EO and GIS tools. 

“We look forward to significantly adding to the spatial data analytics capability of Tracsis and Compass Informatics.”

 Gearóid Ó Riain, managing director of Compass Informatics, added: “This is a great opportunity for our combined teams to be part of strategic growth in the location technologies sector, and we look forward to working with the Icon team to deliver this.”