Topic: Avast bought rival company AVG for $1.3B

[Samker]

Avast Software: http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,36.0.html , the leader in digital security products for consumers and businesses, today announced it has acquired a majority stake in AVG Technologies after completing the initial offering period of its tender offer for all of the outstanding ordinary shares of AVG Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG). Therefore, they will operate as a single company as of Monday, October 3, 2016.

Vince Steckler is named the chief executive officer of the new Avast, overseeing more than $700M in revenue for 2016 for the newly-combined entity. Avast has transformed into a full service security company with the largest Consumer installed base in the world, and with significant Mobile, SMB and Mobile Enterprise businesses. As of the completion of the initial offering period of the tender offer, AVG’s CEO Gary Kovacs will be departing, but will be available on a consulting basis throughout the transition.

“The combined company now has over 400 million users, more than 40% of the world’s consumer PCs outside of China and the largest consumer security installed base in the world. If they were a country, we would have the 3rd largest population in the world,” said Vince Steckler, chief executive officer. “The US is now our number one market with 58 million users. We truly have global reach and are proud to be the most popular choice for security in the world.”

“We now have the technical breadth to provide superior protection for our customers. For example, our combined threat labs will have teams dedicated to emerging threats affecting consumers. These include social engineering threats, which are commonly used to target IoT devices, and ransomware, which we are fighting with machine learning technology. We believe we are now better equipped than ever to outsmart those who want to do harm to people online.”

By acquiring AVG, the new Avast has stronger protection for its customers. Avast now:

- Has the largest threat detection network in the world with more than 400 million endpoints that act as sensors, providing information about malware to help detect and neutralize new threats as soon as they appear
- Has what is probably the world’s largest security-focused cloud and machine learning network comprising over 9,000 servers and supporting 50 million simultaneous connections to provide instantaneous protection to its users
- Prevents around 1 billion malware attacks per month
- Blocks more than 500 million malicious URLs per month
- Blocks around 50 million phishing attacks per month
- Processes 9 million new executable files every month, 25% of which are malicious, giving Avast even faster and deeper insights in the threat landscape

With the acquisition, Avast expands its SMB business and adds AVG’s strong reseller base, enabling Avast to support more and larger organizations. Avast is also gaining Location Labs and its carrier business, which Avast plans to invest in and expand overseas. Due to the closed infrastructure of mobile operating systems, mobile security and privacy protection technology is stronger when embedded in the carrier infrastructure. The Location Labs technology essentially provides a cloud-based solution to customers, bypassing the inefficiencies and insecurities of running within the mobile operating system.

Avast plans to create more and better products that will defend against the growing number of threats in the market. The company will continue to offer both the AVG: http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,108.0.html and Avast branded products for the foreseeable future and to support all customers and partners for both product lines.

“We want our customers to be reassured that whether you use an AVG product or an Avast product, we will continue to support you. We are nothing without our customers and partners who have helped us get to where we are today,” said Vince Steckler.

As a result of the acquisition, Avast holds approximately 87.3% of AVG’s outstanding shares acquired upon the closing of the initial offering period for the tender offer. Avast also announced that it has commenced a subsequent offering period to provide AVG shareholders who have not yet tendered their shares the opportunity to do so. The subsequent offering period is scheduled to expire at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on October 14, 2016, unless extended. As described below, Avast plans to voluntarily delist AVG’s shares from the New York Stock Exchange promptly following the subsequent offering period.

More info: https://blog.avast.com/avast-and-avg-become-one

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Any comments ?!

[myphonecarduk]

now I can show this to my friend and tell him that AVG was useless..he used to argue with me all the time..Thanks for posting..

[V]

Thanks for the post.