McAfee to sell off enterprise business for $4bn

Security vendor announces it is to become a consumer-only business, five months after its IPO

McAfee has announced it has agreed to sell off its enterprise business for a cash sum of $4bn.The security software giant said it has entered a definitive agreement with a US technology consortium led by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group (STG).

Less than six months after its IPO, McAfee CEO Peter Leav said the vendor now wants to focus on becoming a consumer-only business.

"STG is the right partner to continue strengthening our Enterprise business, and this outcome is a testament to the business' industry-leading solutions and most notably to the outstanding contributions of our employees." He said.

"This transaction will allow McAfee to singularly focus on our consumer business and to accelerate our strategy to be a leader in personal security for consumers."

McAfee's enterprise business logged revenues of over $1.33bn in its FY 2020.

With the sale expected to be completed by the end of the year, STG managing partner, William Chisholm, said it will be rebranded in the coming months.

"McAfee is one of the most iconic brands in enterprise security and has a reputation for innovation, quality and leadership," he said.

"We are fully committed to driving the business' strategy to be the leading device-to-cloud cybersecurity company by partnering with McAfee's existing world-class team to continue delivering exceptional performance to enterprises and government clients globally."

Meanwhile, McAfee's $1.56bn consumer business will continue to be publicly traded under the same McAfee name.

McAfee's business split comes 11 years after Intel purchased it for $7.7bn.

It also follows a similar path trodden by endpoint security rival Symantec. Broadcom swallowed its $10.7bn enterprise business in an acquisition in 2019.