Ontario, Canada-based Samsys launched in 1995 and is one of the industry’s major RFID hardware vendors. But the company’s cash reserves dried up and in late March its debentures owners served a notice of default. Samsys recently announced that it was putting itself up for sale.
Samsys, which has about 51.5 million shares outstanding, said it doesn’t expect the orderly disposition of its assets from the deal would satisfy any other claims or make any distributions to its shareholders.
Until now, Toronto, Canada-based Sirit has not been a major player in the RFID industry, although it does have a modest line of readers.
Sirit said it would integrate Samsys’ technology and product offerings with Sirit’s family of RFID readers, to provide customers and partners with a broad range of RFID solutions and form factors.
In February, Sirit bought another RFID reader maker, TradeWind Technologies of Tennessee, for about $1.7m.
The Samsys deal is expected to close by April 13, 2006.
During its most recent fiscal quarter, Samsys lost $2.1m on $1.2m in revenue. In May, the company plans to launch what it claims is a next-generation RFID reader.
