Smartphone maker BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) said on Friday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire secure mobility solutions provider Good Technology for $425 million in cash.
Good, which had previously planned for an initial public offering and filed an S-1 registration in May 2014, has officially given up on those plans, as it now will become part of the struggling smartphone maker as it attempts to transform itself. The company reportedly put its IPO plans on hold in late 2014.
Good has raised nearly $300 million in financing since it was founded in 1996, which shows the deal is more of a win for Blackberry than for the financial backers of Good. The company had revenues of roughly $212 million in 2014.
While not an apple-to-apples comparison, EMC acquired Good Technology competitor AirWatch in a deal valued at over $1.5 billion last year.
According to BlackBerry, acquisition of Good will expand its ability to offer a secure mobility platform with applications for any mobile device on any operating system.
Good will bring complementary capabilities and technologies to BlackBerry, including secure applications and containerization that protects end user privacy, Blackberry said. Additionally, BlackBerry said the deal will help expand its ability to offer cross-platform Enterprise Mobilit Management (EMM) solutions that support deployment models such as bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and corporate owned, personally enabled (COPE) devices.
Good’s platform offers features such as app-level encryption, data loss prevention and secure communication between applications.
“By acquiring Good, BlackBerry will better solve one of the biggest struggles for CIOs today, especially those in regulated industries: securely managing devices across any platform. By providing even stronger cross-platform capabilities our customers will not have to compromise on their choice of operating systems, deployment models or any level of privacy and security,” John Chen, BlackBerry Executive Chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Like BlackBerry, Good has a very strong presence in enterprises and governments around the world and, with this transaction, BlackBerry will enhance its sales and distribution capabilities and further grow its enterprise software revenue stream.”
Good has more than 6,200 customers, including more than half of the Fortune 100, and all of the Fortune 100 commercial banks, aerospace and defense firms.
BlackBerry expects the transaction to be completed toward the end of the company’s 2016 fiscal third quarter, and expects to realize approximately $160 million in GAAP revenue from Good in the first year.
