IPOs seem to be the leitmotif of the past couple of months. After tech companies like Snowflake, Palantir have gone public, now, one of the largest technology security company – McAfee – is doing the same.
McAfee was created in 1987, and bears its founder's name until this day, the famous John McAfee. The company helps protect consumers and businesses from hacker-like threats. Shortly after it was founded, it became the industry leader. So far, their products are used by more than 600 million devices and 30 million subscribers.
Groundbreaking technology on devices since '87, finally listing in 2020!
Short history
Like any other company that has been in this industry for quite some time, McAfee wasn't spared of controversy. Some of the most known events are:
- The Security and Exchange Commission suit filed against the company on January 4, 2006. McAfee was accused of inflating its net revenue between 1998-2000 by $622,000,000. The company didn't admit doing anything but settled the complaint and paid a $50 million fee.
- On April 21, 2012, millions of computers lost network access and even crashed after McAfee updated a file erroneously.
- The same thing happened in 2012 when an update to McAfee antivirus turned off the antivirus protection and disconnected the computers from the internet. McAfee was criticized for taking too much time to address the situation.
- The latest controversy involves the company's founder, John McAfee. He got arrested in Spain for failing to file tax returns from 2014 to 2018.
What you need to know
Although its IPO is approaching, this isn't the company's first public rodeo. It was a public company until 2011 when Intel acquired it for $7.68 billion. Since then, it has been part of the Intel Security division.
Since its founding, McAfee improved its services, now having Labs detecting 8,600 threats per minute and more than 2,600 issued or pending patents in the US and abroad. Given the pandemic, McAfee developed MVISION Insights - a tracker that identifies pandemic-related cyber threats worldwide.
Despite the innovations that it has brought in its field, McAfee is also known for its wealthy clients. The business has as clients 78% of the Fortune 500 and 61% of the Global 2000 companies.
Working with such wealthy clients and having contracts with various governments has been successfully translated into figures. For the quarter ended in September, McAfee reported net revenue of $731 million – a 2.1% increase from the numbers reported at the same time last year. McAfee is optimistic about the future, as it expects an increase in consumer net revenue.
How and where can you trade it?
For this IPO, some of the US's largest banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and BofA Securities, are brought together as underwrites. Rumors say that the 37 million shares put up for sale will be priced somewhere between $19 and $22 apiece, which will bring the IPO at $814 million.
With this IPO, McAfee is looking to raise $682million, listing on the Nasdaq exchange with the ticker symbol MCFE. The final price will be set on October 21, and it will be available for trading on October 22.
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Sources: marketwatch.com, crn.com, barrons.com