McAfee buys Secure Computing

McAfee Inc. will purchase Secure Computing Corp. for about $465 million through the purchase of Secure common stock at $5.75 a share and the redemption of its outstanding shares of preferred stock, the company said today.

Secure Computing, of San Jose, Calif., provides technology solutions that help customers protect their critical Web, e-mail and network assets.

The addition of Secure Computing's products and services will give McAfee a complete network security portfolio covering intrusion prevention, firewall, Web security, e-mail security and data protection, and network access control, company officials said.

The 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 its security risk management portfolio."

With the acquisition of Secure Computing, which has more than 22,000 customers in 106 countries, McAfee expects to become one of the largest network security players, officials added.

After the closing, which is expected in the latter part of the fourth quarter of 2008, Secure Computing's technologies will be incorporated under McAfee's Network Security product business unit.

In August, Santa Clara, Calif.-based McAfee acquired Reconnex Inc., a privately held company in Mountain View, Calif., that specializes in data loss-prevention technology to enterprises, government agencies and educational institutions.