Sophos to snatch Secureworks in $859M buyout: Why fight when you can just buy?

British security biz Sophos has announced a plan to gobble up competitor Secureworks in an $859 million deal that will make Dell happy.

The server maker bought Secureworks in 2011, and tried to spin it off five years later in a somewhat failed IPO, but retained a majority stake. The deal with Sophos (and its owner private equity security empire-builder Thoma Bravo) represents a about 28 percent boost on Secureworks' current stock price with an $8.50 per share cash offer.

Secureworks started in 1998 with basic threat intelligence reporting and flaw finding with solid growth after. Its flagship product is the Taegis SaaS threat detection platform aimed at larger and midsized corporations.

"Combined with our security solutions and industry leadership in MDR, we will strengthen our collective position in the market and provide better outcomes for organizations of all sizes globally," Sophos CEO Joe Levy said in a canned statement.

"Secureworks’ renowned expertise in cybersecurity perfectly aligns with our mission to protect businesses from cybercrime by delivering powerful and intuitive products and services. This acquisition represents a significant step forward in our commitment to building a safer digital future for all."

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The deal is expected to become official next year, pending regulatory approval. While Sophos' acquisition itself might not trigger the FTC's watchdogs over competition rights, the agency might be more interested in the owner of security biz Thoma Bravo, the private equity giant that has been buying up a lot of security companies of late.

In April it snapped up British security shop Darktrace for $5.3 billion - coincidentally netting the late former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch and his wife around $375 million. Darktrace's former CEO Poppy Gustafsson has now been appointed as the UK's new investment minister. The previous year it sealed the deal with Imperva, scooping up app security vendor Imperva for $3.6 billion.

In 2022 it spent $6.9 billion on Texan identity and access management biz SailPoint and a year earlier coughed up $12.3 billion for email security firm Proofpoint. The fund managers bought Sophos itself for over $3 billion in 2020 and reports it has around $50 billion in current cybersecurity assets. ®