Investor group acquires security company McAfee for 12 billion euros

Security company McAfee is taken over by an investor group. The company will announce this on Monday. The group of investors pays the equivalent of 12 billion euros for the security company.

The consortium of investors consists of six parties and is led by the American firm Advent International. With the acquisition, McAfee, which is currently still a publicly traded company, will become fully private. The security company reports this in a press release. As part of the acquisition, all outstanding McAfee shares will be acquired by the investor group for approximately EUR 22.40 per share. The total amount of 14 billion dollars, converted 12 billion euros, will be paid in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022.

McAfee was founded in 1987 by American entrepreneur John McAfee, who passed away earlier this year. It was the first company to market commercial antivirus software. John McAfee left the company in 1994 and the security company was acquired by Intel in 2010. In 2014, the name was changed to Intel Security, but a few years later Intel divested a majority stake in the company, after which it continued under the name McAfee. The security company announced earlier this year that it would only focus on consumer software, and sold its business division. In October 2020, McAfee went public, CNN reports, but after the acquisition, shares of the company are no longer publicly traded.