Strata advised Trainline Investments Holdings Limited

Transaction Summary

Strata advised Trainline Investments Holdings Limited (parent company of thetrainline.com) on the sale of Advanced Smartcard Technologies Limited (trading as “Ecebs”).

Transaction Overview

• Strata acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Trainline Investments Holdings Limited (“Trainline”), an Exponent Private Equity portfolio company and the parent company of thetrainline.com, the UK’s leading online rail retailer and rail information provider, on the sale of Advanced Smartcard Technologies Limited (trading as “Ecebs”), to Bell Identification N.V. (“Bell ID”), a provider of smart token management software for use in sectors such as secure banking, national identity and public transit based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

• Ecebs is a leader in the design of high performance smartcards and the development of smartcard-based applications. Given Ecebs’ opportunities for growth outside the UK rail sector, Trainline decided it was not a core business for them and appointed Strata to sell it through a competitive auction process. Strata used its sector understanding to assist Ecebs in articulating its value proposition for potential buyers from the smartcard technology, public transport applications and payments industries, and approached a broad group of companies worldwide to find the right buyer

• No transaction value was disclosed

 About Ecebs

• Established in 2000 and headquartered in East Kilbride, Scotland, Ecebs is a fast growing technology company that delivers world-class smartcard-based solutions across a broad range of markets, including transport, local government and financial services. Its 45 employees and contractors have deep domain expertise in smartcard technologies, with the founding team having played a major role in establishing key smartcard standards and technologies at Motorola’s smartcard division prior to setting up Ecebs

• Ecebs’ proprietary Multefile platform is a highly secure smartcard operating system that enables a single smartcard to hold multiple applications including EMV payments, public transport ticketing, government benefits and proof of ID. Based on Multefile, Ecebs has created a range of applications, including the Paragon suite of public transport ticketing solutions (to date, the only ITSO Part 11 certified remote ticket download application in the UK); the Smartcare suite of applications for local government benefits management; and the suite of applications used by the new Iraqi national payments and identification card scheme. Ecebs solutions are currently being implemented by Centro, Merseytravel, Nexus, Nottingham, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and Transport for London (TfL). Ecebs is the technology partner of ITSO, the UK’s standard setting body for inter-operable transport