Wednesday, 12 July 2006

Secure Computing to Buy CipherTrust for USD 273.6 Mln

Secure Computing has agreed to acquire privately held messaging security firm CipherTrust Inc. for a total of USD 273.6 million which is comprised of USD 185 million in cash, 10 million shares of its stock, and a USD 10 million seller note.

As a result of the transaction, CipherTrust shareholders will have an about 14 percent ownership position in Secure Computing. The transaction is expected to close by September 8, 2006.

Secure Computing expects CipherTrust to add USD 15 million to USD 20 million in revenue in 2006, and USD 80 million in revenue in 2007.

Jay Chaudhry, chief executive officer, chairman and founder of CipherTrust, will join Secure Computing's board as vice chairman and serve as the company's chief strategy officer.

Secure Computing said the combined company will be positioned to be the leader in the enterprise gateway appliances market. This will include a comprehensive, integrated and unified portfolio of solutions -- ranging from UTM, messaging security, Web filtering and identity management -- with centralized policy and management capabilities. Together, these products will address network gateway and application gateway security for all the major Internet protocols including Web (HTTP and FTP), email (SMTP and POP) and instant messaging and identity based access protection.