Broadcom to acquire Symantec, McAfee to take on NanoSec

Thursday, 8 August was the day for acquisitions it seems, as two technology companies announced their intent to purchase, or purchase of, cybersecurity firms.

Semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions supplier Broadcom is set to acquire Symantec in a $10.7 billion deal.

The agreement will allow Broadcom to expand its infrastructure software footprint with a suite of integrated enterprise security solutions, including endpoint security, web security services, cloud security and data loss prevention.

Broadcom President and Chief Executive Officer Hock Tan said mergers and acquisitions played a central role in Broadcom’s growth strategy and that the transaction was the “logical next step” following the acquisitions of Brocade and CA Technologies.

Broadcom added that deploying Symantec’s enterprise security suite through its channels would help “strengthen its differentiated portfolio agreement strategy of offering significant overall savings to customers, while creating predictable, recurring revenue stream for its business that will drive returns for shareholders”.

The acquisition — which is expected to close in the three months from 4 November 2019 — is projected to drive more than $2 billion of sustainable, incremental, run-rate revenues and around $1.3 billion of Pro Forma EBITDA, including synergies. It is also likely to generate over $1 billion of run-rate cost synergies within 12 months of closing.

Meanwhile, device-to-cloud cybersecurity company McAfee has acquired NanoSec — a multicloud, zero-trust application and security platform, allowing McAfee’s customers to improve governance and compliance while reducing risk associated with cloud and container deployments.

In particular, it will strengthen McAfee MVISION Cloud and MVISION Server Protection products’ container security.

McAfee Senior Vice President and Cloud Security Business Unit General Manager Rajiv Gupta said: “NanoSec’s technology is a natural extension for McAfee MVISION Cloud, enhancing our current CASB and CWPP products, and adding to our ‘Shift-Left’ capabilities to deliver on the DevSecOps best practice to improve governance and security.”

The terms of the acquisition have not been released at the time of writing. 

Image credit: © stock.adobe.com/au/nespix