Symantec announced that it will be acquiring Blue Coat for approximately $4.65 billion in cash. Greg Clark, CEO of Blue Coat will be appointed to head the combined company which will be headquartered in Mountain View, California. He will also join the Symantec Board upon closing of the transaction.
Private-equity firm, Bain Capital which purchased Blue Coat just over a year ago for $2.4 billion will invest $750 million of the proceeds back into the combined company in the form of debt convertible into equity.
This transaction will combine Symantec’s leading threat telemetry with Blue Coat’s networks and cloud security offerings to provide differentiated security solutions.
The combined portfolio will also help protect customers against more cyber threats, with best-in-breed protection, detection and remediation across endpoint, email, web, network and servers. Symantec will also be able to deliver security for the cloud generation of users, data and apps, for the cloud, from the cloud and to the cloud.
Greg Clark, Chief Executive Officer, Blue Coat
Once combined, we will offer customers around the world – from large enterprises and governments to individual consumers – unrivaled threat protection and unmatched cloud security.
Thomas Seifert, Chief Financial Officer, Symantec
With the $150 million in expected annual net cost synergies, in addition to our previously announced $400 million in planned net cost savings, this transaction will allow Symantec to improve our profitability while continuing to invest in innovation and drive growth.
