McAfee finally spins out of Intel to become an independent entity

Cybersecurity provider, McAfee, has announced that it has begun operating as a new standalone entity. As a standalone business, McAfee claims that it is one of the world’s largest pure-play cybersecurity firms. The launch of McAfee marks the closing of the previously announced investment by TPG and Intel Corporation (INTC) to establish a pure-play cybersecurity company with access to significant capital, operational and technology resources. In addition to this, the company also announced that private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo has joined as a minority investor, through an agreement with TPG. Intel will still retain a 49% equity stake in the new entity. Bryan Taylor, Partner at TPG will join the company as the Chairman of the Board. McAfee aims to apply greater market focus, build its platform and target new financial, operational and technology investments to better address the cybersecurity market’s global growth opportunity. It has also outlined a new strategic vision, focused on innovation, trust, and collaboration. McAfee was a standalone company that provided anti-virus and firewall services in the 2000s. It was bought by Intel in 2010 for $7.6 billion and renamed as Intel Security, but the McAfee logo remained. With the closing of this deal, McAfee will finally spin out from Intel Securities and be overseen by TPG which has a majority stake in the company now. “Cybersecurity is the greatest challenge of the connected age, weighing heavily on the minds of parents, executives and world leaders alike,” said Christopher Young, who is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel and will lead McAfee as the Chief Executive Officer.

“As a standalone company with a clear purpose, McAfee gains the agility to unite people, technology and organizations against our common adversaries and ensure our technology-driven future is safe.”

Announced in September last year, the newly formed cybersecurity firm which is a spin-out of Intel Security (McAfee), is valued at $4.2 billion, where TPG made a $1.1 billion equity investment to help drive growth and enhance focus as a standalone business. “We offer Chris Young and the McAfee team our full support as they establish themselves as one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity companies in the industry,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO.

“Security remains important to Intel, and in addition to our equity position and ongoing collaboration with McAfee, Intel will continue to integrate industry-leading security and privacy capabilities in our products from the cloud to billions of smart, connected computing devices.”

Intel Security platform claims to protect more than 250 million endpoints, secures the footprint for nearly two-thirds of the world’s 2,000 largest companies, detects more than 400,000 new threats each day, and represents more than 7,500 strong of the industry’s most talented professionals. McAfee would now handle all this.