The investment firm TPG will buy the majority stake in cyber security division of Intel Corp, formerly known as McAfee, for $3.1 billion in cash, the latter announced.
Valuing the entire company at $4.2 billion including debt, TPG will own 51 percent of the new entity. A 49 percent stake in the business would be retained by Intel, which bought McAfee for $7.7 billion in 2011.
The efforts to stake out a major position in the computer security business came to an end with the deal. Intel spoke of integrating McAfee security technology into its chips at the time of the acquisition, but little came of those plans.
Newer players such as Mandiant, now a unit of FireEye, came to dominate the business of protecting corporations from sophisticated espionage, which Intel executives at the time had also said they hoped the acquisition would give it a piece of the emerging business. The traditional McAfee customer base’s potential was eroded at the same time as PC growth slowed.
Following the closing of the deal, expected in the second quarter of 2017, the unit, rebranded as Intel Security Group in 2014, will revert to the McAfee brand name.
John McAfee, McAfee’s founder, is a pariah in the industry since he has been on the run for a time from a murder investigation in Belize. He recently sued Intel to get back the right to use his name.
The chief executive of the new company would be Chris Young, Intel Security's general manager.
The company said in a statement, through the first half of this year, Intel Security's revenue rose 11 percent to $1.1 billion.
Sources familiar with the matter said that about a year ago, a proposal for a potential transaction for McAfee was made by TPG, which is making a $1.1 billion equity investment in the company. TPG was the lead investor in a $100 million funding round in internet security firm Zscaler and also led a $120 million investment round for security startup Tanium last year.
Meanwhile, in another deal in the global IT sphere, a partnership that will enable Box's corporate customers to integrate Google's suite of word processing, spreadsheets and other productivity tools, known as Google Docs, was announced by Alphabet's Google and online storage company Box Inc.
Google is trying to become a central player in corporate computing and is being led by Dianne Greene, the highly regarded enterprise computing executive who now runs Google's cloud computing division.
Potentially reaching new customers who now use Google Docs and an opportunity to broaden its suite of applications are the takeaways for Box from the deal. According to the announcement, Box will serve as a "third-party content repository" for Google Docs.
Providing a neutral platform where customers could integrate software and services from a variety of companies by the use of "modern productivity tools" is the goal of the deal, said Box Chief Executive Officer Aaron Levie in an interview. Similar deals to integrate Microsoft's 360 software application with Box were pointed out by him. Incidentally, Microsoft's 360 software application competes with Google Docs.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
Valuing the entire company at $4.2 billion including debt, TPG will own 51 percent of the new entity. A 49 percent stake in the business would be retained by Intel, which bought McAfee for $7.7 billion in 2011.
The efforts to stake out a major position in the computer security business came to an end with the deal. Intel spoke of integrating McAfee security technology into its chips at the time of the acquisition, but little came of those plans.
Newer players such as Mandiant, now a unit of FireEye, came to dominate the business of protecting corporations from sophisticated espionage, which Intel executives at the time had also said they hoped the acquisition would give it a piece of the emerging business. The traditional McAfee customer base’s potential was eroded at the same time as PC growth slowed.
Following the closing of the deal, expected in the second quarter of 2017, the unit, rebranded as Intel Security Group in 2014, will revert to the McAfee brand name.
John McAfee, McAfee’s founder, is a pariah in the industry since he has been on the run for a time from a murder investigation in Belize. He recently sued Intel to get back the right to use his name.
The chief executive of the new company would be Chris Young, Intel Security's general manager.
The company said in a statement, through the first half of this year, Intel Security's revenue rose 11 percent to $1.1 billion.
Sources familiar with the matter said that about a year ago, a proposal for a potential transaction for McAfee was made by TPG, which is making a $1.1 billion equity investment in the company. TPG was the lead investor in a $100 million funding round in internet security firm Zscaler and also led a $120 million investment round for security startup Tanium last year.
Meanwhile, in another deal in the global IT sphere, a partnership that will enable Box's corporate customers to integrate Google's suite of word processing, spreadsheets and other productivity tools, known as Google Docs, was announced by Alphabet's Google and online storage company Box Inc.
Google is trying to become a central player in corporate computing and is being led by Dianne Greene, the highly regarded enterprise computing executive who now runs Google's cloud computing division.
Potentially reaching new customers who now use Google Docs and an opportunity to broaden its suite of applications are the takeaways for Box from the deal. According to the announcement, Box will serve as a "third-party content repository" for Google Docs.
Providing a neutral platform where customers could integrate software and services from a variety of companies by the use of "modern productivity tools" is the goal of the deal, said Box Chief Executive Officer Aaron Levie in an interview. Similar deals to integrate Microsoft's 360 software application with Box were pointed out by him. Incidentally, Microsoft's 360 software application competes with Google Docs.
(Source:www.reuters.com)
