De La Rue on March 2005 Sequoia was sold to Smartmatic, a multi-national technology company which had developed advanced election systems, voting machines included. In 2003, the company acquired the Debden-based banknote printing operations of the Bank of England. In 2003 and 2004 the company supplied banknotes to Iraq. The company was recognised by Hermann Simon as a role model for other small- to medium-sized businesses in his book "Hidden Champions". The Highest Perfection, a history of De La Rue was published in 2011. Written by Peter Pugh for De La Rue, it covered the years 1712–2003. In August 2014, the company announced
Hippolyte De La Rue he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. De La Rue was summarily retired from the RAAF after the war, along with a number of other senior commanders and veterans of World War I, partly to make way for the advancement of younger and equally capable officers, and also due to his suspect health. In recommending early retirement, the CAS, Air Vice Marshal George Jones, noted that De La Rue possessed "fairly good Service knowledge" and was of strong character, but that "sometimes his efforts [were] ill-directed". De La Rue was, furthermore, above the statutory retiring