The historic security software company McAfee Corp. has just announced that it has reached an agreement with a group of investors that will acquire the company for the colossal figure of —approximately— $ 14 billion.
Investors willing to pay such an amount are, fundamentally, venture capital companies such as Advent International Corp., Permira Advisers and Crosspoint Capital Partners, as well as sovereign wealth funds Singapore (GIC) and Abu Dhabi (Adia).
When the sale closes during the first half of 2022, those investors will acquire all the shares of the company at a price of 26 dollars per share, 22.6% higher than McAfee’s closing price on Nov. 4 of $ 21.21.
Peter Leav, CEO of the company, has stated that the operation is a consequence of the “leadership of its products” and the “talent of its employees” …
… Although without a doubt the fact that the company has recorded a net profit of 2,592 million dollars has also weighed on the investors’ decision, which means multiplying by 83 the benefits of the same period last year.
This acquisition comes at a time when the increase in remote work and cyberattacks against companies has increased the demand for antivirus
What has become of McAfee in these years?
Now, the first consequence of this operation is that McAfee will go public just over a year after returning to public markets. This return had taken place in October 2020, shortly after selling its McAfee Enterprise division (which combined its corporate business) to the Symphony Technology Group firm and announcing that it would continue its operations as a consumer cybersecurity company.
The company was founded in 1987 by the wildly controversial John McAfee (died a few months ago in a Barcelona prison), with the antivirus of the same name as the star product.
Despite the abandonment of its founder in 1994, it retained its surname as a brand, even when it was acquired in 2010 by Intel.
However, after two years in which John McAfee chained various highly mediated legal controversies (starting with a flight to Belize when they tried to interrogate him for the murder of a neighbor), Intel announced its intention to move away from it by progressively replacing the McAfee brand by ‘Intel Security’.
After that, in 2016, Intel decided to ’emancipate’ Intel Security, so a company was created in which Intel only retained 49% of the shares … and that regained the McAfee brand.