Security giant Avast has announced it intends to acquire fellow Czech-based antivirus software maker AVG for a purchase price of $25.00 per share in cash — resulting in a transaction that will total around $1.3 billion.
Avast intends to finance the transaction using cash balances it holds, along with committed debt financing from third party lenders.
The deal is aimed at gaining scale and geographical breadth, Avast said today. It also wants to build out its security offerings with an eye on emerging growth opportunities such as in the Internet of Things, as well as on serve existing customers with “more advanced” products.
IoT has been dubbed a
security nightmare for consumers, given the accelerating trend for network connectivity to be pushed into all sorts of devices — often by companies with little or no security expertise. But the opening up of this vast new front of potential vulnerabilities is clearly also an opportunity for experienced security players to step in and address.
Organization efficiencies are also expected as a result of the acquisition, so presumably there will be some staff reductions owing to duplicate roles.
