By Alice Seeley
Google announced on March 8 an agreement to acquire Mandiant, Inc., a cybersecurity firm, for $23 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion. This is the largest acquisition in Google’s history.
Once the transaction is completed, Mandiant will join the Google Cloud. The goal of the acquisition is to better help companies address cyber threats.
In a joint statement from Mandiant and Google, the companies said, “the acquisition of Mandiant will complement Google Cloud’s existing strengths in security. Combined with Google Cloud’s cloud-native security offerings, the acquisition will help enterprises globally stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle.”
Mandiant stock increased by 16% after Google made the announcement.
Mandiant was previously owned by FireEye before it became a standalone company last year when FireEye sold it to Symphony Technology Group for $1.2 billion in October 2021. Mandiant reported $483 million in revenue for 2021, a 21% increase from 2020.
FireEye is known for helping Microsoft discover the SolarWinds hack that attacked government systems in 2019 and 2020.
This deal follows Google’s January purchase of Israeli cybersecurity startup Siemplify for $500 million. Google Cloud plans to start using Siemplify later this year.
CEO of Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian, is looking “forward to welcoming Mandiant to Google Cloud to further enhance our security operations suite and advisory services, and help customers address their most important security challenges.”
The deal is expected to be completed by late 2022.
