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• If the deal goes through, it will be Google’s second-largest acquisition
• Google will pay $23 for each share of Mandiant
Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google on Tuesday said it is buying cybersecurity firm Mandiant Inc (NASDAQ: MNDT) for $5.4 billion as part of an effort to better protect its cloud customers.
In the wake of cyberattacks, the deal will help improve Google’s cloud computing business, which generates more than $19 billion annually.
Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) was also said to be discussing buying Mandiant, according to news reports published earlier last month.
The Mountain View search giant offered to pay $23 for each share, representing a premium of nearly 20% to Mandiant’s last Friday closing price.
The share of the cyber security company jumped over 16% on Monday, over news reports saying that Google is planning to acquire Mandiant.
Mandiant fell over 3.5%, while Alphabet rose over 1% on Tuesday.
Google’s second-largest acquisition
If the deal gets approved by regulators, it will be Google’s second-largest acquisition ever behind the $12.5 billion Motorola deal in 2012.
Mandiant focuses on strategic cyber security advisory and cyber-incident response services.
The company became a standalone entity last year when FireEye Inc, which acquired Mandiant in 2013, sold its products business and the FireEye name for $1.2 billion to a consortium led by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group.
FireEye was credited with helping Microsoft discover the SolarWinds hack that attacked government systems last year.
Mandiant has also investigated cyberattacks, including recent breaches at News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA) and Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA).
On Monday, a Goldman Sachs economist in a research paper said cyberattacks are expected to cause damage of about $1 trillion to the global economy each year and warned that an escalation in the Russia-Ukraine crisis could trigger “malicious cyber activity” with the possibility to inflict high economic and social costs.
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