Baltimore Sells Content Technologies Unit

Struggling security vendor Baltimore Technologies plc. on Thursday announced the sale of its Content Technologies division for about $29 million.

Clearswift Corp., a software company based in England, bought the division with a mix of cash, loan notes and Clearswift shares.

Baltimore paid $992 million for Content Technologies in 2000.

The sale is part of a reorganization plan Baltimore began in August that is meant to trim the company to a more manageable size and refocus it on its core businesses of public-key infrastructure software and services.

“Whilst the disposal of Content Technologies is a significant step toward strengthening our company for success in its core business, our efforts to refocus the business, enhance the productivity of our operations and maximize its potential are far from being complete,” said Bijan Khezri, CEO of Baltimore, based in Dublin, Ireland. “This transaction represents good value, and we are relentless in our efforts to build a competitive cash generating business.”

After the completion of the sale, Baltimore will own an 11 percent stake in Clearswift, which produces policy-based e-mail security software. Content Technologies main products are the MIMEsweeper Web, intranet and e-mail security solutions.

The sale is subject to the approval of Baltimores shareholders, who will vote on the issue at a meeting in March.