Security vendor Barracuda Network announced on Nov. 27 that it has agreed to be acquired by private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo in cash deal valued at $1.6 billion.
Under the terms of the deal, Thoma Bravo will pay Barracuda Networks shareholders $27.55 per common share, representing a 22.5 percent premium over the company’s 10-day average stock price prior to the deal’s announcement. The two companies expect the acquisition to close by Feb. 28, 2018, pending regulatory approvals.
“We will continue Barracuda’s tradition of delivering easy-to-use, full-featured solutions that can be deployed in the way that makes sense for our customers,” BJ Jenkins, CEO of Barracuda, said in a statement. “Thoma Bravo has an excellent history of investing in growing security businesses, and this transaction speaks to the value and strength of Barracuda’s security platform, which helps customers protect and manage their networks, applications, and data.”
The acquisition by Thoma Bravo caps off a busy year of product news and development from Barracuda. The company was originally known primarily for its network security offerings but has expanded in recent years with additional security and data recovery capabilities.
On March 16, Barracuda debuted new data backup and recovery capabilities for both VMware and Microsoft based virtual machines. On June 28, Barracuda announced its new Sentinel service, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and container-based technologies to improve email security.
Barracuda has also enhanced its network security products and services in 2017 as well. On Nov. 15, the company announced expanded cloud capabilities for its Web Application Firewall (WAF) and NexGen Firewall products. The new capabilities include usage-based billing for the NextGen firewall running in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud as well as automated configuration capabilities for the WAF, thanks to an integration with the Puppet DevOps tool.
Financially, Barracuda is also moving forward with growing revenues. Barracuda reported its second quarter fiscal 2018 financial results on Oct. 10, with revenue coming in at $94.3 million for a 7 percent year-over-year gain.
Thoma Bravo
For Thoma Bravo, the acquisition of Barracuda adds yet another cyber-security vendor to the private equity firm’s expanding portfolio.
“Barracuda is a proven industry leader, consistently bringing powerful, comprehensive solutions to customers in an increasingly prevalent, hostile, and complex threat environment,” Seth Boro, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo, said in a statement. “We believe that Barracuda is at the forefront of innovation in several highly strategic areas of the cyber-security market and are excited to be the company’s partner in the next phase of its growth.”
Among Thoma Bravo’s cyber-security companies is DigiCert, which completed a $950 million acquisition of Symantec’s SSL certificate business on Oct. 31. Thoma Bravo took a majority equity stake in DigiCert in August 2015.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.