Trump who can dig into your DigiD traffic: that will not happen for the time being. It party Solvinity will not fall into American hands, the State Secretary decided. But where will the company be housed? We list the possibilities.
Trump who can black out all our health insurance policies with one stroke of a pen if the Netherlands does something he doesn’t like: it was ultimate doomsday scenario around the sale of IT company Solvinity to the American club Kyndryl, which failed on Tuesday.
Solvinity provides the digital highway on which all our DigiD data travels from A to B. If that ‘highway’ were to be called an American ‘highway’ from now on, the US would have been able to look at our DigiD data in addition to imposing sanctions.
That probably won’t happen, we have known since Tuesday. State Secretary for Digital Economy Willemijn Aerdts (D66) banned the sale after a negative advice from the Investment Assessment Bureau (BTI). The takeover posed ‘potentially a risk’ to the ‘public interest’, Aerdts wrote. Anyway, what next for the company that arranges all our DigiD traffic?
1. Solvinity remains in British hands
Kyndryl can go to court, but remains unclear to the media whether it will do so. Solvinity is currently owned by the British investment company Vitruvian Partners. Anyway, you are an investor who ultimately wants to resell a company at a profit.
It is therefore unlikely that Solvinity will remain with the British for long, thinks IT expert Bert Hubert. “It’s like moving to another house and then staying in your old house. Those British guys are crafty guys, they have other plans.”
Those British guys are crafty guys. They don’t hold Solvinity
Moreover, the British are now saddled with a large expense item. Takeovers cost companies a lot of money. “Think about hiring lawyers,” says Hubert, who was involved in two takeovers as a manager. “Or consider paying bonuses to employees so that you retain them for the takeover. Because everyone in such a company works for months on the takeover, there is little room to bring in new customers.”
2. New opportunity for Dutch party
Now that the Americans are missing out on the price, it is logical that the second bidder will get another chance. The good news is: this is a Dutch party. An unknown Dutch investor offered according to EenToday only a few million euros less than Kyndryl, which would have left at least 100 million euros on the table.
That all sounds great, but the question remains whether this investor will put the same offer on the table after this whole drama. “Those people are not crazy either,” says Hubert. “They will certainly not offer another 100 million. They will say: this company is tipsy.”
3. A new buyer, the government?
If that doesn’t work out, the British can look for another buyer. This could also be the Dutch government, which already owns DigiD manager Logius. It is in line with what is stated in the coalition agreement, according to Hubert: “We have to get better with computers, do more ourselves. The government is then a very logical step.”
It would be a change in policy. For a long time, providing these types of IT services was not seen as a government task. Yet it is not a bad idea, according to Hubert: “ICT is vital for our government and society. Some things simply should not be outsourced.”
Is Solvinity safe?
Solvinity came into the news negatively in March when it was a television program Argos revealed that the Justice ICT service had been hacked twice last year. Software against online snoopers would not have worked well. This was managed by Solvinity.
Under the wings of billion-dollar company Kyndryl, Solvinity had an army of cybersecurity experts at its disposal. However, we should not exaggerate that effect, according to Hubert: “It is a misunderstanding that large companies spend relatively more on cybersecurity. Moreover, Microsoft is also hacked on the assembly line.”
Solvinity is therefore safe enough, according to Hubert. “Solvinity has a large security department. They focus exclusively on large customers with high security requirements, such as the Ministry of Justice. They are far too expensive for the local racing pigeon association.”
LISTEN ALSO to our daily news podcast Join the conversation with AD
WATCH ALSO to our economy videos:
