American company Sabre Holdings has bought the Icelandic software start-up company Calidris. The contract was signed in March and the acquisition made public on last week. The acquisition price has not been revealed.
Calidris develops software for airlines. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
Calidris’s shareholders, Eyrir Invest, founders and employees are content. “[Running the company] was difficult at times. But we always believed in the vision,” managing director and one of Calidris’s two owners Magnús Ingi Ólafsson told Fréttabladid.
Thórdur Magnússon, chairman of the board of Calidris and Eyrir Invest, who held 25 percent of shares in Calidris, said the acquisition is pleasing because it opens a door to a larger market for Calidris’s technology and methods.
Around 40 people are employed by Calidris in Iceland and their number is expected to increase. The company’s main executives will be given key positions at Sabre.
Co-owners Ólafsson and Kolbeinn Arinbjarnarson, who founded Calidris is 1997, will shape the company’s future policies.
Calidris develops software used to complement the computer systems of airlines and improves their operations. Many airlines already use the system, including Icelandair, British Airways and Finnair.
Sabre Holding is the mother company of Sabre Airlines Solutions, which is one of the world’s three largest software companies in the field of aviation.
