Raytheon rumor focuses on cyber deal
By
Nick Wakeman
Raytheon is eyeing a $1 billion acquisition of Websense, a cybersecurity firm that focuses on monitoring network traffic to ward off attacks.
It looks like our pick for single best dealmaker of 2014 – Raytheon – isn’t going to rest on any laurels in 2015.
Bloomberg is reporting that the company is working to acquire Websense, a cybersecurity business, for more than $1 billion.
Websense makes products that help organizations, including government agencies, protect their networks against cyberattacks and data theft by inspecting network traffic and filtering emails and other network traffic.
In 2014, Raytheon acquired Blackbird Technologies, a surveillance and cybersecurity company, for $420 million. We picked that acquisition as the single best deal of 2014.
Websense is owned by Vista Equity Partners, which acquired the company in 2013 for $890 million, according to the Bloomberg report.
A deal for Websense would continue a quickly moving trend we are seeing in the market of larger systems integrators acquiring companies with cybersecurity capabilities. For example, one of Raytheon’s biggest rivals, Lockheed Martin, made four acquisitions in 2014, including Industrial Defender, a provider of cybersecurity products. Because of the four deals, Lockheed was picked as the best overall dealmaker.
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