Federal Signal ups offer for Sirit from C$48m to C$69m

Federal Signal has upped its offer for Sirit by 43% after a mystery competing bid for the Toronto Ontario manufacturer and supplier of RFID transponder-reader systems. The offer is now $69m v the $43m previously agreed for the acquisition.

Stock of Sirit were trading on Canadian stock exchanges before the announcement today at the 30c per share from the earlier agreement with Federal Signal.

Sirit management apparently solicited the Federal Signal offer and has endorsed both offers. The mystery bidder was unsolicited, they say.

Sirit shares in the month before the first Federal Signal offer averaged around 22c/share and only 18c/share in the two previous months.

Federal Signal is apparently positioning itself to become a major player in electronic toll collection with recent acquisitions of associated toll technologies such as license plate reading and smart loops.

Sirit based out of Toronto has dominated the electronic toll RFID 'front end' - transponders and readers - in California and is a major supplier of ISO 18000 6C sticker tags and readers for toll collection, parking and access control. It has had a close working relationship with 3M in marketing of electronic registration tags - so far unsuccessful in the US, but big in Mexico and Brazil.

The name Sirit is simply a reversal of TIRIS, a name used by a Hughes predecessor company in California back in the 1990s. Federal Signal is a 109 year old company headquartered in the Chicago area.

There is no information on where the rival offer came from. Interesting to see if the mystery rival ups the offer?

All currency above is Canadian dollars, c 95c US.

TOLLROADSnews 2010-02-22