Consumer antivirus company NortonLifeLock has entered an agreement to purchase competitor Avast in a deal valued between $8.1bn and $8.6bn.
According to Security Week, the combined company will serve over 500 million users and will create around $280m of annual gross cost synergies.
NortonLifeLock seeks to help secure the devices, identities, online privacy and home and family needs of around 50 million people. Prague-headquartered Avast is also a consumer antivirus company that claims it strives to ‘give everyone the power to explore our shared digital world freely and safely’.
Under the terms of the deal, shareholders of Avast could receive a combination of cash and newly issued shares in NortonLifeLock.
The newly combined company will be dual headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic, with the firm having a ‘significant presence’ in the latter. The merged business will be listed on the NASDAQ.
Following the conclusion of the deal, Avast CEO Ondřej Vlček is anticipated to join NortonLifeLock as president and will become a member of the board of directors.
The buying of Avast is the second acquisition in the space of a year for NortonLifeLock, who purchased German antivirus enterprise Avira for $360m in cash in December 2020.
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