NortonLifeLock has confirmed it is buying Avast for as much as $8.6 billion as part of its cunning plan to create an “industry-leading” consumer cybersecurity business.
The transaction, made up of a combination of cash and new shares, will value LSE-listed Avast at between $8.1bn and $8.6 billion.
The deal represents a 20.7 percent premium on Avast’s closing price of 504.2 pence per share as of 14 July 2021.
Once the acquisition closes, the combined business will be listed the Nasdaq exchange and be headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague in Czech Republic.
Avast’s chief executive Ondrej Vlcek will join NortonLifeLock’s board and will be appointed president of the combined business while NortonLifeLock CEO Vincent Pilette will become chief executive of the combined business.
NortonLifeLock came into being following Broadcom’s acquisition of Symantec’s enterprise business in 2019, leaving behind its consumer operations as a standalone business. Avast acquired cybersecurity peer AVG in 2016 which created a behemoth with more than 400 million users globally.
In a statement, Pilette said that the merger will create a business with “compelling strategic scale” with a user base of more than half a billion.
“Our proposed merger with NortonLifeLock is a major step forward… creating a world-leading consumer Cyber Safety business which combines Avast’s strength in privacy and NortonLifeLock’s strength in identity protection. United, our highly complementary product portfolios will have far-reaching benefits, significantly enhancing our ability to drive innovation through R&D, and accelerating the transformation of our Cyber Safety platform for our more than half a billion combined users.”
