Avast has completed the acquisition of AVG Technologies
Roman Zavřel Jiří Filip Letem světem Applem
Avast Software, a global leader in digital security for home and business, today closed an initial public offering for the remaining shares of AVG Technologies...
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LSA Magazine
Avast Software, a global leader in digital security for home and business, today completed an initial public offering for the remaining shares of AVG Technologies, acquiring a majority stake in the company. As of Monday, October 3, both companies will be managed as one company.

Vince Steckler has been appointed as CEO to lead the new entity with this year's projected sales exceeding USD 700 million. "The Czech roots of both of these companies, which employ some of the best IT engineers in the world, are very important to us, and we want to continue to build on them. The majority of our management and development team will be in the Czech Republic," said Vince Steckler, adding that "the new Avast should be even more Czech. For that reason, it plans to bring some of AVG's activities back to the country.

By combining with AVG, Avast becomes a full-service internet security company with the broadest user base in the world and significant business activities in the SMB, enterprise and mobile security segments. Following the termination of the initial share repurchase offer, AVG CEO Gary Kovacs is stepping down; however, he will continue to consult on the integration of both companies.

“The new Avast has more than 400 million customers, covering more than 40% of home computers worldwide excluding China, representing the world's largest user base for personal computer security. If we were to imagine them as a country, our users would make up the third most populous country in the world," said Avast CEO Vince Steckler. “Our biggest market now is the United States, where we have 58 million users. We have a truly global reach and are proud to be the world's most popular choice for internet security users.”

"We now have a much wider technical potential, which allows us to protect our users even better. For example, we have united virus labs, in which teams are created to deal with new security threats such as social engineering, attacks directed at IoT devices or ransomware, which we fight against using machine learning. We are better equipped than ever before to defeat anyone who wants to harm users on the Internet,” added Vince Steckler.

Thanks to the acquisition of AVG, Avast now offers its users even higher protection against various threats. New Avast:

has the widest detection network in the world with 400 million end devices. These act as sensors providing information about viruses and malware, helping to destroy new threats as soon as they appear;

has arguably the largest security cloud network and machine learning platform in the world, consisting of more than 9 thousand servers and enabling 50 million concurrent connections, ensuring instant protection for all users;

prevent roughly 1 billion attacks per month;

blocks more than 500 million malicious URLs per month;

blocks more than 50 million phishing attacks per month;

scans approximately 9 million executables per month, of which it detects 25% as malicious, giving it faster and deeper awareness of the most current digital threat landscape.

With the acquisition, Avast will expand business activities in the SME segment and gain AVG's strong distribution base, which will allow it to work with and support more companies, including large organizations. Avast has also taken over Location Labs, which AVG bought two years ago. Avast plans to further invest in cooperation with mobile operators and expand it to other countries. Due to the closed nature of mobile operating systems, mobile security and privacy protection is more effective when it is built directly into the infrastructure of mobile operators. The technology from Location Labs is a cloud solution that can overcome the imperfections of mobile operating systems.

Avast plans to continue to improve its existing products while coming to market with new security solutions to protect against the growing number of new threats. The company will continue to offer products under the AVG and Avast brands and provide support to all its customers and partners in both product lines .

“We want to assure our users that whether they use AVG or Avast branded products, we will continue to provide them with full support. We would be nothing without our customers and partners, they got us to where we are today,” said Vince Steckler.

Avast, whose roots go back to 1988, is based in Prague's Pankrác and is proud of its origins in the Czech Republic, where it has been paying taxes for almost 29 years. Avast has decided to share its global success with others, and therefore has been financially supporting organizations and community activities since 2010 through its endowment fund. Last year, the Avast Foundation distributed USD 4,6 million in the Czech Republic.

As a result of the acquisition, Avast now holds approximately 87,3% of the remaining shares of AVG that it acquired pursuant to the initial purchase offer. Avast also announced that it has launched a follow-on share repurchase offer as an opportunity for those AVG shareholders who have not yet participated. The follow-on offer will expire on October 14, 2016 at 23:59 p.m. New York time, unless extended. Avast plans to voluntarily delist AVG Technologies shares from the New York Stock Exchange immediately following the completion of the follow-on share repurchase offer.