Apple acquires biometric firm for $350 million (San Antonio Business Journal)
Apple Inc. has reportedly paid $350 million to acquire Melbourne, Fla.-based AuthenTec Inc., a maker of fingerprint authentication technology, Bloomberg reports.
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The deal will help Apple improve its biometric features to improve security on future releases of the iPad and iPhone.
For some perspective, Safran bought L-1’s biometrics business for $1.6 billion in late 2010.
Josh Franklin at Seeking Alpha deserves a special prize. He called it here on June 4 when AUTH shares were trading for about $4.60/s. Pre-open today is about $8.16. Since his article at the time disclosed his long position in AUTH, he’s probably already counting his special prize as I type this.
The Seeking Alpha piece explains a lot of the rationale for the purchase.