Trafficlink owner to be sold to US firm

ITIS Holdings, the owner of radio travel news provider Trafficlink is being sold to American company INRIX for £37m.

The deal – which is expected to go through in late August – will see ITIS become the European headquarters of the Seattle-based firm.

No jobs are expected to be lost as part of the takeover. ITIS employs around 150 people across the UK and its revenues in the last year were up slightly to £16.5m, while profits rose from £300,000 the year before to £1.83m in the year to the end of March 2011.

ITIS founder Stuart Marks will head INRIX’s European business. He said: “This is about creating an enlarged company with a wider geographical reach as the traffic information business becomes more global. The two businesses are highly complementary. By being able to serve our customers with a global business will make us more competitive and enable us to develop the business. The opportunity to pool technologies, customers and best practice is very exciting.”

Bryan Mistele, chief executive of INRIX added: “Automakers, mobile companies and other customers are increasingly demanding global traffic and connected driving solutions. ITIS is a strategic investment that expands our geographic reach, technical expertise and suite of market-leading technologies to offer customers the best traffic information, more cost-effectively and in more markets.”

Here, ITIS hold the UK’s only ‘Additional Services’ licence from Ofcom which allows them to transmit traffic information to in-car navigation devices using spare capacity on Classic FM’s frequencies. In the States, Inrix work with the country’s biggest radio group Clear Channel on a project called Total Traffic Network which delivers real-time traffic data straight to vehicles using a combination of travel reporters, traffic cameras and other data sources.