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Permira acquired listed security specialist Mimecast for approximately 5.1 billion euros ($5.8 billion). The acquisition should enable the security specialist to grow further.

Permira is a private investment company. The acquistion results in Mimecast’s removal from the NASDAQ stock exchange. In total, Permira will pay shareholders around 71 euros ($80) per share. Mimecast wants to use the acquisition funds for expansion.

With the acquisition of Mimecast, Permira realizes its second purchase of a security company in the span of a few weeks. Recently, McAfee was acquired in cooperation with other investment companies.

The acquisition of Mimecast is still subject to a 30-day reservation. During this period, the security specialist can officially respond to deals from other parties. Permira expects to complete the acquisition in the second half of next year.

Email security platform

Through the acquisition, the private investment company gets its hands on a security specialist that focuses on email security. Mimecast offers a platform that intercepts spam and spearphishing messages. It also discovers malicious attachments in emails, including malware that preys on zero-day vulnerabilities.

The security specialist uses AI methods to analyze the security data from the billions of emails scanned through the platform. The analysis looks for anomalies and protects by blocking threatening events.

In addition, the Mimecast platform analyzes the code in the attachments based on static file analysis for discovering attached malware. The attachments are opened in a sandbox for further inspection.