Intel To Receive $3.1B For McAfee Deal

Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) is selling off a majority stake in its McAfee unit. Intel is receiving $3.1 billion in cash as part of the deal. Once the deal is complete, investment firm TPG will own a 51 percent stake in the new McAfee company. Intel will own the remainder. The deal is expected to close in next year’s second quarter.

TPG has announced that it will be making a $1.1 billion equity investment in the new McAfee company to drive growth. The new company will also take on $2 billion of debt. The debt initially will be financed by Intel until completion of audited financial statements for McAfee. The new company will be valued at $4.2 billion. The transaction is subject to certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group, is a leading global alternative asset firm. The company started with investing in traditional leveraged buyouts, but soon moved to tech investment. In a statement, Bryan Taylor, a partner at TPG, said, “We have long identified the cybersecurity sector, which has experienced strong growth due to the increasing volume and severity of cyberattacks, as one of the most important areas in technology.”

The move will turn McAfee back into an independent security company. The new McAfee will be one of the largest “pure-play” cybersecurity companies in the world, according to statement from Intel. Chris Young, the general manager for Intel Security, will be head of the new company. Young joined Intel’s security unit from Cisco Systems in 2014.

Reports about a possible McAfee sale circulated earlier this year. Intel paid $7.7 billion for McAfee back in 2011. PC security was a major concern back then, and Intel was hoping to improve security around its products. Today, cloud security is the big concern. Intel said it still plans to collaborate with McAfee to add security features across its product lines.

In 2014, the chipmaker rebranded its McAfee business as Intel Security. Currently, Intel Security’s comprehensive software platform protects more than a quarter of a billion endpoints and detects more than 400,000 new threats each day. In the first half of the year, the unit reported $1.1 billion of revenue. This was an 11 percent increase over the same period of 2015. The unit reported operating income of $182 million for the first half of the year, a 391 percent jump over last year’s numbers. Total bookings increased 7 percent per year on a constant currency basis from 2013 to 2015.