Hitachi completes purchase of Thales

Hitachi Rail has announced the completion of its EUR 1.6bn acquisition of Thales’ Ground Transportation Systems (GTS) business, expanding its presence to 51 countries worldwide. 

 

The closing of the deal means that 9000 additional colleagues will join Hitachi Rail, taking the company’s workforce to 24 000. This almost doubles the company’s engineering capability and will enable an increase in innovation across signalling, ticketing, operations and cyber security solutions. 

 

Giuseppe Marino, Group CEO of Hitachi Rail said: “Completing this transaction is a historic moment for our business, as we expand to 51 countries and increase our revenues to €7.3bn globally [FY23 pro forma]. Hitachi Rail’s greater global reach and accelerated innovation is the start of an exciting new chapter that will deliver enhanced value and growth in new markets.With Thales’ Ground Transportation Systems team on board, we can better deliver the sustainable mobility transition for the world’s best transport companies. Bringing our teams together sees our engineering capacity nearly double and means faster innovation and more advanced technology-led solutions for our customers.” 

 

The deal is indicative of the long-running strategy of Hitachi, Ltd., Hitachi Rail’s parent company, to transform its businesses around the concept of “Social Innovation”. The Group has reshaped its portfolio of companies around essential sectors which deliver the infrastructure and technology that underpins progress in today’s world, including the energy transition, the digital AI revolution and the sustainable mobility transition. 

 

Hitachi Rail produces global integrated rail solutions, including rolling stock. Thales is a global systems integrator offering new technologies to improve the quality of ground transportation systems.