Sophos will most likely be in the hands of Thoma Bravo soon. The company has, in fact, received a takeover bid from the American private equity company of USD 7.40 per share. This amounts to a total of approximately 3.9 billion dollars (3.53 billion euros).
The board of directors will unanimously advise the shareholders of Sophos to accept the offer, as the security company states in a statement. “We see this offer as a compelling validation of Sophos, its position in the industry and its progress,” says CEO Kris Hagerman.
The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2020.
Thoma Bravo
Thoma Bravo is a private equity company, specializing in technology. The organization has been in existence for forty years, during which time it has acquired more than two hundred software and technology companies, which together represent a value of more than 50 billion dollars.
One of those acquisitions was Barracuda Networks in 2017. Before that, Thoma Bravo deposited 1.6 billion dollars, which at the time amounted to approximately 1.3 billion euros. Earlier, Thoma Bravo also acquired Riverbed, Qlik and Flexera.
Sophos has been in existence since 1985 and is an important player in the security market. The company is particularly well known for its endpoint protection and firewall products. Silicon Angle reports that Sophos has more than 400,000 companies as customers worldwide and that the company protects 100 million users.
Acquisitions of Sophos
Sophos is not unfamiliar with takeovers either. In January this year, for example, the company took over cloud security officer Avid Secure, which was how the security specialist wanted to expand its own capabilities.
In June this year, Sophos also acquired MDR specialist Rook Security. MDR is the abbreviation for managed detection and response. Rook Security had a team of cyber threat specialists and experts in incident response, who are currently being integrated into Sophos.