Private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo has entered an agreement to acquire security company Barracuda Networks for $1.6 billion in cash.
Barracuda shareholders will receive $27.55 for each share of common stock they hold, which exceeds the average stock price of $22.49 for the ten days leading up to November 27 by more than 22 percent.
The agreement was unanimously approved by Barracuda’s board of directors. Once the acquisition is completed – likely before the fiscal year ends on February 28, 2018 – Barracuda will operate as a privately-held company and it will continue to focus on email security and management, data protection, and network and application security solutions for cloud and hybrid environments.
“We believe the proposed transaction offers an opportunity for us to accelerate our growth with our industry-leading security platform that’s purpose-built for highly distributed, diverse cloud and hybrid environments. We will continue Barracuda’s tradition of delivering easy-to-use, full-featured solutions that can be deployed in the way that makes sense for our customers,” said BJ Jenkins, CEO of Barracuda.
“Thoma Bravo has an excellent history of investing in growing security businesses, and this transaction speaks to the value and strength of Barracuda’s security platform, which helps customers protect and manage their networks, applications, and data. I expect that our employees, customers, and partners will benefit from this partnership,” he added.
The news comes just weeks after Barracuda announced the acquisition of public cloud archiving and business insights provider Sonian in an effort to enhance the company’s email security and management capabilities.
Barracuda’s latest financial report shows that the company’s revenue in the second fiscal quarter grew 7% year-over-year to $94.3 million, and the number of active subscribers increased by 17% to nearly 350,000.
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