US cybersecurity firm McAfee announced on Monday it will be sold to a group of investors for more than $14 billion, just over a year after going public.

The consortium led by Advent International Corporation and Permira Advisers will pay about $12 billion in cash to acquire all of McAfee's outstanding shares, with the cost rising to more than $14 billion when the company's debt is added.

The investor group also includes Crosspoint Capital Partners, Canadian pension fund CPP Investments, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund.

The sale is the latest episode in the history of the company founded by John McAfee in 1987, the namesake of the antivirus software.

The firm once went public in 1992, then again in 1999 following a merger, before Intel bought it for about $7.7 billion and delisted it in 2011.

Following an integration process observers viewed as fraught, Intel in 2016 then spun McAfee off from its core business, keeping a large stake but handing control to investment company TPG Capital.

McAfee returned to the stock market again in October 2020, taking advantage of a buoyant atmosphere for the cybersecurity industry.

After several years of back-to-back losses, the company seems set to return to profitability this year.

The company's name remains associated with that of its founder John McAfee, who died last June at the age of 75 in a Spanish prison where he was awaiting extradition to the United States over tax fraud charges.

The entrepreneur and programmer, who before his death had become a kind of guru of cryptocurrencies, resigned from the company in 1994.

tu/vmt/cs/bfm

INTEL

Related Links
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

US court convicts Chinese intelligence agent of economic espionage
Washington (AFP) Nov 5, 2021
A Chinese intelligence officer was convicted in US federal court Friday of economic espionage in an alleged state-backed effort to steal technology from US and French aerospace firms, the Justice Department said. Xu Yanjun, an official in the Jiangsu province foreign intelligence office of the Ministry of State Security, was found guilty in the Cincinnati court on two counts of conspiring and attempting to commit economic espionage, and three counts related to trade secret theft. The economic es ... read more