McAfee rattles tin for $600m+ in fresh IPO filing valuing firm at $3.6bn
(2020/10/14)
- Reference: 1602690733
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/10/14/mcafee_ipo_reports/
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McAfee – the antivirus vendor, not the [1]totally sane and level-headed man who founded it – is reportedly looking to raise more than $600m in its upcoming IPO.
The news comes some weeks after McAfee [2]made a placeholder valuation of $100m in its IPO filing , with investment speculators reckoning the final sum might top $2bn.
The business will offer around 31 million shares to the market at $19-$22 apiece, [3]according to the S-1. Just over 6 million shares will come from existing stockholders, who will pocket those dollars.
This deal would value McAfee at $3.64bn if shares sold for the full $22.
The filing stated: "We estimate that the net proceeds to us from this offering will be approximately $588m, or approximately $612m if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares of Class A common stock."
It added that a portion of the money would be used to pay down some of its debt and to buy class B stock.
McAfee’s US investment prospectus stated the firm’s wares “protected over 600 million devices as of June 27, 2020”. In the first six months of to 27 June 2020, McAfee claimed a net profit of $31m; last fiscal year (2019) it reported revenues of $2.6bn – and a net loss of $236m.
Those revenues are a rather shaky comparison to Intel Security’s quarterly income of $1.1bn at the time of its spin-out from Chipzilla proper, [4]as we reported at the time . Looking back further in the history books McAfee was [5]bought by Intel for $7.68bn in 2010 , back in the sepia-toned days of its stock trading at $29.93.
Four years ago Intel [6]sold its majority stake in McAfee to private equity firm TPG .
McAfee’s PC antivirus product has long enjoyed a less than stellar reputation among power users, not least thanks to the 2018 update shenanigans [7]that caused it to crash computers running McAfee Endpoint Security. Later that same year a security company claimed that a priv-escalation CVE in McAfee’s True Key software [8]had not been fully addressed despite two patches being issued by the company to fix it .
Perhaps the IPO will uncover some financial or technical McAfee wizardry that has hitherto been hidden over the past decade. ®
Bootnote
John McAfee, the founder of the firm who sold up and exited it in the 1990s, was [9]arrested last week on charges of tax evasion and breaches of US securities laws . His colourful past is likely to feature heavily in the 74-year-old’s upcoming legal proceedings.
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/john_mcafee_tax_evasion/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/mcafee_ipo/
[3] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783317/000119312520268184/d89887ds1a.htm
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/07/mcafee_intel_sells_security_firm/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/19/intel_mcafee/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/07/mcafee_intel_sells_security_firm/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/24/mcafee_blue_screen_of_death/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2018/09/11/mcafee_flaw_fix/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/john_mcafee_tax_evasion/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The news comes some weeks after McAfee [2]made a placeholder valuation of $100m in its IPO filing , with investment speculators reckoning the final sum might top $2bn.
The business will offer around 31 million shares to the market at $19-$22 apiece, [3]according to the S-1. Just over 6 million shares will come from existing stockholders, who will pocket those dollars.
This deal would value McAfee at $3.64bn if shares sold for the full $22.
The filing stated: "We estimate that the net proceeds to us from this offering will be approximately $588m, or approximately $612m if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares of Class A common stock."
It added that a portion of the money would be used to pay down some of its debt and to buy class B stock.
McAfee’s US investment prospectus stated the firm’s wares “protected over 600 million devices as of June 27, 2020”. In the first six months of to 27 June 2020, McAfee claimed a net profit of $31m; last fiscal year (2019) it reported revenues of $2.6bn – and a net loss of $236m.
Those revenues are a rather shaky comparison to Intel Security’s quarterly income of $1.1bn at the time of its spin-out from Chipzilla proper, [4]as we reported at the time . Looking back further in the history books McAfee was [5]bought by Intel for $7.68bn in 2010 , back in the sepia-toned days of its stock trading at $29.93.
Four years ago Intel [6]sold its majority stake in McAfee to private equity firm TPG .
McAfee’s PC antivirus product has long enjoyed a less than stellar reputation among power users, not least thanks to the 2018 update shenanigans [7]that caused it to crash computers running McAfee Endpoint Security. Later that same year a security company claimed that a priv-escalation CVE in McAfee’s True Key software [8]had not been fully addressed despite two patches being issued by the company to fix it .
Perhaps the IPO will uncover some financial or technical McAfee wizardry that has hitherto been hidden over the past decade. ®
Bootnote
John McAfee, the founder of the firm who sold up and exited it in the 1990s, was [9]arrested last week on charges of tax evasion and breaches of US securities laws . His colourful past is likely to feature heavily in the 74-year-old’s upcoming legal proceedings.
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/john_mcafee_tax_evasion/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/mcafee_ipo/
[3] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1783317/000119312520268184/d89887ds1a.htm
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/07/mcafee_intel_sells_security_firm/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/19/intel_mcafee/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/07/mcafee_intel_sells_security_firm/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/24/mcafee_blue_screen_of_death/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2018/09/11/mcafee_flaw_fix/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/john_mcafee_tax_evasion/
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/