IBM has announced the acquisition of Israeli data security company Trusteer. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed, but according to market estimates the price is $630 million, plus some tens of millions of dollars that will be paid directly to the employees. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, subject to the usual conditions.
This is IBM's largest ever acquisition in Israel, and it will mean huge gains for Trusteer's backers. Only $10 million have been invested in the company.
Trusteer provides software solutions that help enterprises to protect themselves from financial fraud and sophisticated security threats. Seven of the top ten US banks and nine of the top ten UK banks use Trusteer’s solutions. IBM says in its announcement that cloud-delivered security solutions by Trusteer will complement more than 100 Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions offered by IBM.
IBM will set up a cybersecurity software lab in Israel that will bring together more than 200 Trusteer and IBM researchers and developers to focus on mobile and application security, advanced threat, malware, counter-fraud, and financial crimes. This lab is an addition to IBM’s existing research and development facilities in Israel.
“Trusteer’s expertise and superior technology in enterprise endpoint defense and advanced malware prevention will help our clients across all industries address the constantly evolving threats they are facing,” said Brendan Hannigan, General Manager, Security Systems Division, IBM. “Together with IBM’s capabilities in advanced threat detection, analysis and remediation, we will now be able to offer our clients several additional layers of defense against sophisticated attackers.”
“The way organizations protect data is quickly evolving,” said Mickey Boodaei, CEO, Trusteer. “As attacks become more sophisticated, traditional approaches to securing enterprise and mobile data are no longer valid. Trusteer has helped hundreds of large banks and organizations around the world defeat thousands of sophisticated attacks using innovative solutions that combine intelligence, cloud, mobile, and desktop technologies.”
Trusteer was founded in 2006 by Mickey Boodaei, Rakesh Loonkar, Amit Klein, Shmulik Regev, and Eldan Ben-Haim and is backed by US Venture Partners and Shlomo Kramer. It has offices in Israel and in Boston.
IBM was represented in the transaction by by Adv. Barry Levenfeld, Ben Sandler, David Roness and Noam Enk from Yigal Arnon & Co. Trusteer was represented by Adv. Ashok Chandrasekhar, Noa Rosenberg Segalovitz and Sharon Aloni from Goldfarb Seligman & Co.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 15, 2013
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