Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced it would be making two key acquisitions, saying it has signed definitive agreements to acquire PGP Corporation and GuardianEdge Technologies, Inc., two privately-held leaders in the email and data encryption market.
Symantec will acquire PGP Corporation for approximately $300 million in cash and GuardianEdge for approximately $70 million in cash.
The acquisitions will help position the company in the fast growing encryption market which, according to IDC, is estimated to reach $1.7 billion in 2013.
“As information becomes increasingly mobile, it’s essential to take an information-centric approach to security. Our market-leading data protection solutions provide the intelligence for customers to better understand what data is important, who owns it and who accesses it,” said Francis deSouza, senior vice president, Enterprise Security Group, Symantec. “With these acquisitions we can further protect information by using encryption in an intelligent and policy-driven way to give the right users access to the right information, enabling the trust that individuals and organizations need to operate confidently in an information-driven world. We’re now able to offer the industry’s most comprehensive solution across encryption and data loss prevention for protecting confidential data on endpoints, networks, storage systems and in the cloud.”
Following the acquisitions, Symantec plans to combine key features and functionality from each company’s products and standardize on the PGP key management platform in order to deliver centralized policy and key management capabilities across the entire suite of encryption solutions.
GuardianEdge, already a Symantec technology partner for Symantec Endpoint Encryption, will help the company expand in the government sector.
Upon close of the acquisitions, PGP Corporation and GuardianEdge will join the Enterprise Security Group led by Senior Vice President Francis deSouza.
The agreements are subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and are expected to close during the June quarter.
