Security firm Symantec has agreed to acquire two privately-held encryption firms PGP and GuardianEdge for approximately $370m, in a move to strengthen its position in the encryption technology market.
Under the terms of the agreements, Symantec will acquire PGP for a purchase price of approximately $300m in cash and GuardianEdge for approximately $70m in cash.
Symantec expects the transactions to be 2 cents dilutive to non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal year 2011 and accretive to its non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal year 2012.
Symantec said that it intends to bring together key features and functionality from each company’s offerings and standardise on the PGP key management platform in order to deliver centralised policy and key management capabilities across the entire suite of encryption offerings.
The security firm also intends to integrate PGP key management platform into Symantec Protection Center, which will simplify security information management by providing customers consolidated access to threat, security and operational dashboards and reporting. It will also enhance the management of endpoint security, data loss prevention and gateway security products.
Francis deSouza, senior vice president of enterprise security group at Symantec, said: “As information becomes increasingly mobile, it’s essential to take an information-centric approach to security. Our market-leading data protection solutions provide the intelligence for customers to better understand what data is important, who owns it and who accesses it.
“With these acquisitions we can further protect information by using encryption in an intelligent and policy-driven way to give the right users access to the right information, enabling the trust that individuals and organisations need to operate confidently in an information-driven world.
The agreements are subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and are expected to close during the June quarter.
