French cybersecurity specialist Exclusive Networks may disappear from the stock market. A consortium of private equity firms led by Clayton Dubilier & Rice and Permira has offered some 2.2 billion euros to take the company private.
If Exclusive Networks agrees to the current offer, investors will receive 24 euros per share, according to a statement from the company. Nevertheless, Exclusive stressed that there is no agreement yet, and negotiations are still ongoing.
Partly due to the news of the imminent takeover, the stock market value of the Paris-listed company went up slightly, from 21.70 to 23.60 euros at its highest. Its current stock value is still around there somewhere. British investor Permira holds most of the French company’s shares, more than half, according to Bloomberg.
Plenty of interest in security companies
Buyers are showing plenty of interest in security companies, recent news reports show. The industry is in the spotlight because of some large-scale incidents recently. Permira also announced in May that it was buying up many shares in Israeli anti-fraud specialist BioCatch, at a valuation of 1.3 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros).
Security company Tenable previously acquired Israeli Eureka Security, and Rapid7 added the start-up Noetic Cyber to its portfolio. That acquisition came at a precarious time for Rapid7, as it is under pressure to sell itself.
Security company Wiz intends to go public and wants to achieve 1 billion dollars in annual sales before it gets there, relying largely on acquisitions such as those of Raftt and Gem Security. However, Wiz’s proposed acquisition of Lacework fell through, it was eventually Fortinet that scooped up this prize.
Also read: Fortinet strengthens cloud security offering with acquisition of Lacework