NICE-Systems Ltd. (NICE)

[midastouch017]

Nice Systems will continue to expand through M&A, says chief
14.12.06 | 15:09 By Shirley Yom-Tov
Nice Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) will continue to make strategic acquisitions, vowed its CEO, Haim Shani, in an interview with Bloomberg.

He said the acquisitions are designed to accelerate the company's organic growth and strengthen its presence in the markets in which Nice operates.

First and foremost Nice wants to acquire defense-sector companies, Shani said.

Nice today operates in two areas: voice recording systems for customer centers, which generated 75% of its income, and video and voice recording systems for homeland security applications. Shani said the company would like to increase the proportion of its revenue generated by security applications.

In July, Nice bought IEX for $200 million. The target company actually makes software for human resources management, strategic planning and management of customer services. It also bought Performix Technologies, an American company that makes software to manage performance of customer centers, for $13 million.

Nice is traded on Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at a market capitalization of $1.5 billion. At the end of the third quarter it had $245 million cash.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/801196.html