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Orange announces in a press release that it will pay 515 million euros to acquire SecureLink 100 percent. SecureLink is one of the largest independent cybersecurity providers in Europe, with an annual turnover of 248 million euros in 2018.

SecureLink is based in the Netherlands, but originally a Belgian company. Three Flemish people, Frank Staut, Hans Van Erum and Bert Van Loco founded SecureLink in 2003 and sold it a few years ago to the American Investcorp.

The acquisition removes one of the largest independent cybersecurity providers in Europe. The company has local offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Germany, Denmark and Norway. Today, it offers specialised security consulting, maintenance and 24/7 service desks.

Second takeover

SecureLink has a total of 660 employees, spread over 14 offices. It provides services to more than 2,100 customers across a wide range of industries. The acquisition will make Orange one of the European leaders in the field of cyber security. It now has 1,800 employees and an annual turnover of more than 600 million euros in 2018.

The European cybersecurity market is growing rapidly, according to Orange. It is already an important player in France today, via Orange Cyberdefense. After buying SecureData earlier this year, SecureLink aims to take a clear step towards becoming a pan-European leader in cybersecurity services.

Local anchoring

Thomas Fetten, CEO of SecureLink: We were very impressed by Orange Cyberdefense’s ambition in recent years. We are very excited to work on a pan-European plan to become a joint leader in cyber security. Orange Cyberdefense, SecureData and SecureLink are very complementary and share the same vision.

Cybersecurity is a growing priority for any type of business, large or small. We believe that the two most important factors to be successful are scale and local anchoring. Scale because today’s dangers are global and complex. Local because you only want to trust local partners for your most delicate assets, says Hugues Foulon, Executive Director of Cybersecurity at Orange.

Related: Orange strengthens B2B activities with acquisition of UCC specialist BKM

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.