2010-05-01
Abstract
Symantec makes purchases, Sophos sells majority interest and rumours rumble about McAfee.
Copyright © 2010 Virus Bulletin
Late last month Symantec announced that it is poised to acquire two email and data encryption firms: PGP Corporation and GuardianEdge Technologies. The acquisitions – which will cost the company $300 million and $70 million respectively, both in cash – will put it in a strong position in the rapidly growing encryption market as well as broadening its data protection offerings. The move follows previous data encryption acquisitions by security firms McAfee and Sophos – McAfee having purchased SafeBoot in 2007 and Sophos having acquired Utimaco in 2008. Symantec is expected to finalize the purchase of the two companies in the June quarter.
Meanwhile, Sophos has announced the pending sale of a majority interest in the company to private equity group Apax Partners in a deal that values the company at $830 million. The founders of Sophos will retain a significant minority shareholding while private equity firm TA Associates, which invested in the company in 2002, will sell its full interest to Apax.
While all this has been going on there have been rumblings of speculation that McAfee may be about to be bought by Hewlett-Packard. While the rumours are unconfirmed, they were enough to give McAfee share prices a boost, with the company’s shares seeing their biggest gain in two months following a report by financial analysts which concluded that an acquisition of the security software company would help HP compete against Cisco Systems. However, the company’s share price fell again following the release of a disappointing first quarter report and forecast for the second quarter.
