McAfee is changing owners again as part of a $4 billion all-cash transaction that includes the sale of its enterprise business unit.
McAfee, based in San Jose, Calif., announced on Monday it was selling its enterprise operations Symphony Technology Group (STG), a private equity firm that also owns security behemoth RSA Corp.
The decision to shed the enterprise business follows a similar move by McAfee’s traditional rival Symantec, which sold off its enterprise unit and rebranded as the NortonLifeLock consumer security brand.
McAfee President and CEO Peter Leav said the enterprise company will be rebranded at a later date. “This transaction will allow McAfee to singularly focus on our consumer business and to accelerate our strategy to be a leader in personal security for consumers.”
Leav described STG as the right partner to continue strengthening McAfee’s enterprise business and said the latest sale is “testament to the business’ industry-leading solutions and most notably to the outstanding contributions of our employees.”
The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2021, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.
McAfee said its business-facing enterprise business is popular among Fortune 100 firms around the world, pulling in about $1.3 billion in net revenue in fiscal year 2020.
Last October, McAfee set the terms for an initial public offering (IPO) while announcing it was offering roughly 31 million of its own shares.
The company revealed in an S-1 form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it’s offering a total of 37 million shares, including roughly 6 million from stockholders. McAfee says it will not get any of the proceeds from the sale of stockholder shares.
McAfee was acquired by Intel in 2010 for $7.68 billion and in 2014 the chipmaker announced that McAfee would become Intel Security. In 2016, Intel decided that McAfee would again become an independent company after TPG Capital acquired a 51% stake.
McAfee claims its products protect over 600 million devices and its solutions are used by many Fortune 100 companies. The company says its net revenue increased from $1.9 billion in 2011 to $2.6 billion in 2019. For the first half of 2020, it reported a net revenue of $1.4 billion and a net income of $31 million.
Related: Peter Leav Named CEO of McAfee
Ryan Naraine is Editor-at-Large at SecurityWeek and host of the popular Security Conversations podcast series. He is a security community engagement expert who has built programs at major global brands, including Intel Corp., Bishop Fox and GReAT. Ryan is a founding-director of the Security Tinkerers non-profit, an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, and a regular speaker at security conferences around the world.
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