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
Rue de la Harpe it was cut short below the Boulevard Saint-Germain by the construction of the Boulevard Saint-Michel from 1859, it continued under more or less the same name until Paris' former 12th-century ""Porte Saint-Michel"" gate at the corner of today's rue Soufflot and Boulevard Saint-Michel. The rue de la Harpe's 'newer' westward twist above the rue Saint-Séverin owes its existence to first a ""bac"" footbridge crossing the river from its end, then the construction of the first version of the pont Saint-Michel from 1378. To the south of the rue Saint-Séverin, the rue de la Harpe has been known as: ""rue de