Magal Security Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: MAGS; TASE: MAGS) has won an approximately $20 million order from a city in Latin America for the installation of a municipal surveillance security solution based on the company's Fortis command and control system. Most of the order will be delivered this year.
Magal posted $51.3 million revenue in the first half of the year. This is the company's second foreign order in as many months. In July, it won a $3 million contract to install the Fortis system at an Asian capital. Contracts in Israel are even smaller.
Magal CEO Izhar Dekel told "Globes", "The size of the contracts depends on a number of variables, and not just on the size of the city. It depends on the security needs, the number of applications, and the scale of the installations. This city wants high-level security, with hundreds of cameras on the streets, sensors, intercoms, and control buttons, and with video and data transmission to hundreds of users and patrol vehicles."
Magal's municipal security systems provide authorities with command and control capabilities based on information flows from security cameras and sensors installed at critical points. Dekel added, "This is a complete and closed system and it puts us onto a whole new playing field. Urban protection is much more extensive than our traditional business of perimeter protection."
Entry into the urban protection business puts Magal into direct competition with two much larger Israeli companies - NICE Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: NICE; TASE: NICE) and Verint Systems Inc. (Pink Sheets: VRNT).
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 3, 2008
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