Vodafone has confirmed that its voluntary tender offer for security and telematics provider Cobra Automotive Technologies S.p.A. was settled on 8 August 2014.
The telco currently owns 97.33% of Cobra and the company will become a 100% owned subsidiary of Vodafone on 14 August 2014.
Italian company, Cobra, designs and builds geolocation equipment for vehicles, with factories in Italy, South Korea and China.
Together, Cobra and Vodafone will provide automotive and insurance customers with benefits arising from the joint global scale and capabilities in telematics and managed M2M (Machine to Machine) connectivity.
“Telematics is the largest and fastest growing segment of the automotive M2M value chain,” says Grant Hopkins, Director of Enterprise, Vodafone New Zealand.
“This acquisition is all about delivering end to end connected car services to our customers.
“The combination of Vodafone and Cobra will create a new global provider of these services. We plan to invest in the business to offer our automotive and insurance customers a full range of telematics services.
“We will also be able to increase the breadth of services we can provide in other industry sectors.”
