A year and a half after announcing interest in buying Veoneer Inc.’s Active Safety business, Magna prevailed over rival Qualcomm in that effort. The companies announced the $1.525 billion acquisition, which, when combined with Magna’s existing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) business, will create an entity with $3 billion in annual sales by 2024, Magna forecasts.
The transaction includes 15 of Veoneer’s engineering centers and 2,200 of their engineers. Of that group, 1,800 are for systems, software, and sensor development.
Magna CEO Swamy Kotagiri pointed to the companies’ complementary technologies in a conference call following the announcement. “We have a particular strength in camera-based systems, including front, surround view, rear view as well as drive quality and driver monitoring systems,” he noted, citing specific expertise in digital radar, solid-state lidar, ultrasonics, and ADAS CPUs and domain controllers.
“Veoneer has significant development and manufacturing experience in radar and front cameras as well as strong capabilities and experience in domain controllers,” he said. “It also has capabilities in driver and in-cabin monitoring camera technology.”
The companies also have complimentary customer bases, as Veoneer is stronger in Asian markets than Magna is, Kotagiri said at the time Magna announced its pursuit of Veoneer. “Veoneer’s complementary technology offerings, customer base, and geographic footprint make it an excellent fit with our ADAS business, and the acquisition strengthens our global engineering and software development talent base,”
Veoneer, Inc. is a 70-year-old, $1.37 billion company that had 7,500 employees working in 11 countries. Slightly more than half of those employees will shift to Magna under the acquisition.