Internet security firm Baltimore Technologies, which employs 100 staff in Dublin, agreed to sell its authorisation business yesterday for £8.3 million sterling (€12.04 million) to Hewlett-Packard (HP).
The sale of the SelectAccess division represents the first part of a controlled sale process, initiated by Baltimore in May.
A Baltimore spokesman said the sale process for other parts of the business or the entire firm would continue.
Baltimore bought the SelectAccess software product from Canadian firm Nevex in October 2000 for £29 million in an all-share transaction.
The division generated revenue of £0.7 million and a loss before interest and tax of £2.1 million in the year ended December 31st, 2002.
The product enables businesses to cut the cost and complexity of providing a Web-based authorisation process for people who want to interact with them.
The 30 staff who worked at the SelectAccess division are all based in Canada and will now transfer to HP.
Mr Barry Dixon, an analyst with Davy Stockbrokers, said Baltimore had negotiated a good price for its SelectAccess business, which represented only a small part of is total revenues.
But he said the SelectAccess unit was one of the more attractive parts of Baltimore's business due to its growth potential.
Under the structure of the deal, Baltimore will have to pay the net liabilities of the SelectAccess division, which stood at £3.8 million at December 31st, 2002.
Baltimore said it would use the cash proceeds of the disposal for general corporate purposes.
The disposal should be concluded in August after an extraordinary general meeting, the firm said.
Mr Bijan Khezri, Baltimore chief executive, said he remained committed to achieving the best possible outcome for its stakeholders regarding the remaining parts of the business.
The firm is in talks with a number of companies about selling either the rest of its operations or other parts of its business. Further announcements are expected to be made shortly.
The biggest part of Baltimore's business is its UniCert product, which is based on public key infrastructure technology and provides authentication to users.
Analysts have estimated the rest of the business could attract bids of up to £40 million.
This is still dramatically below the valuation that Baltimore achieved at the height of the dotcom boom, when it was led by the current managing director of the FAI, Mr Fran Rooney.
At that time, Baltimore commanded a market capitalisation of several billion pounds. But as corporations delayed their spending on technology products during the downturn, Baltimore's stock market value slumped, prompting the current sale process.
