The US antivirus specialist NortonLifeLock snaps-up for more than eight billion USD the the Czech Republic competitor Avast.
The Czech IT security company Avast will be acquired through a billion USD deal by its competitor NortonLifeLock. Avast will be valuated with USD 8.1 to USD 8.6 billion. The Avast shareholders will receive a combination of cash and new shares announced the two companies.
Both boards have given green light for the resulting agreement. Together the reach is for globally more than 500 million customers, underlined NortonLifeLock-boss Vincent Pilette. He will remain in the top notch position when the merger is on. The merger will provide more possibilities for innovation, claimed Avast-Chief Ondrej Vlcek who will join the management team of NortonLifeLock.
Growth came with Vienna Virus
The history of the Czech enterprise is reaching back to 1988 as the today 61 year old Pavel Baidis has written a programme to eliminate the so called Vienna Virus. Jointly with Eduard Kucera, a colleague of his at a mathematic research centre, they founded the anti-virus company, receiving later the name Avast.
On the battleground of the market of IT-Security they offered their programme in 2001 free of charge in a basic version.
NortonLifeLock derives from the sector’s heavy weight Symantec and is centred to security software for private users. The merged companies will have two headquarters in Tempe, Arizona (USA) and in Prague (Czech Republic). The shares will be traded on US Nasdaq.