Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), the company behind the data harvesting behemoth Google, is to buy cybersecurity firm Mandiant Inc for US$5.4bn.
The acquired company will become part of Google’s Cloud business. According to the Bloomberg news agency, Windows and Office software giant Microsoft had previously expressed an interest in buying Mandiant.
Alphabet has agreed to pay US$23 a share for Mandiant. Shares in Mandiant closed 16% higher yesterday at US$22.49 after news broke of Alphabet’s interest.
The offer price represents a 57% premium to the 10-day trailing volume-weighted average price as of February 7, 2022, the last full trading day prior to published market speculation regarding a potential sale of the company.
Mandiant specialises in investigating cyberattacks on corporations. The company was previously part of FireEye but was demerged last year.
The company is one of many cybersecurity firms that has created a task force to track the escalating crisis in Ukraine.
We are excited to announce that we've signed an agreement to join the @GoogleCloud family — bringing together some of the best minds in security! Read more here: https://t.co/SaDIwDUOM5 pic.twitter.com/FrCH2fE4wd
— Mandiant (@Mandiant) March 8, 2022
Mandiant has more than 600 consultants ready to respond to thousands of security breaches each year.
“Cyber security is a mission, and we believe it’s one of the most important of our generation. Google Cloud shares our mission-driven culture to bring security to every organization,” said Kevin Mandia, the chief executive officer of Mandiant.
“Together, we will deliver our expertise and intelligence at scale via the Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform, as part of the Google Cloud security portfolio. These efforts will help organisations to effectively, efficiently and continuously manage and configure their complex mix of security products,” he added.