McAfee and Secure Computing come to a multi-million dollar agreement to help add to McAfee's portfolio

Security maker McAfee today announced it plans to acquire enterprise network security company Secure Computing Group for $465 million. The $5.75 per share is a 27 percent increase of the company's Friday closing price of $4.52.

"Today’s announcement of this pending acquisition is a natural extension of McAfee’s security-only focus," said Dave DeWalt, chief executive officer and president of McAfee.

"We expect the pending combination of McAfee and Secure Computing will create an annual projected combined revenue of just under $500 million in the network security segment of our SRM portfolio. We believe that this pending acquisition will allow us to immediately establish a leading and highly competitive position in the network security space."

The McAfee purchase is the company's biggest acquisition, and will help the company boost its presence in corporate network security while increasing the number of companies that use its products. McAfee has a global partner base of 12,000, and will receive 2,000 more solution providers once the deal is approved.

Specifically, McAfee hopes to cash in on Secure Computing's TrustedSource technology, which will be marketed towards small and medium size businesses looking for secure software technology without going through the hassle of installing lots of software.

The only major concern, according to analysts, is attempting to make Secure Computing's software easier to use, as the company has a notorious reputation for creating software that is hard to install and manage.

McAfee Chief Executive Dave DeWalt, who took the job in 2007, has used corporate buyouts to help the company expand its software portfolio. The security company already purchased, SafeBoot, Reconnext, Onigma, and other companies in recent months.

The deal will be completed once the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission approve the buyout under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Neither company is expecting products from the planned acquisition. The transaction should close before the end of 2008.

Moving forward, McAfee will likely enter database security and security information management, a move that will happen by more company acquisitions.

Source: DailyTech