Brokerage firm warns Google’s $5.4B deal with Mandiant may face ‘protracted’ review
If it gets the regulatory go-ahead, Google’s acquisition of cybersecurity firm Mandiant will be its second largest bit of M&A business since it forked out $12.9 billion for Motorola back in 2012.
At an agreed price of $23 per share, Google values Mandiant at $5.4 billion. That’s more than double the amount Google paid for business intelligence specialist Looker in 2019 and overshadows its $2.1 billion Fitbit acquisition last year. The nearest big deal value, as pointed out by broker house MKM Partners, is the $3.2 billion it shelled out for Nest in 2014.
MKM Partners also warns that Google’s attempt to burnish its cybersecurity credentials and further beef up Google Cloud – to better challenge AWS and Microsoft – “could face a protracted regulatory review process in light of the overall antitrust scrutiny that Google is facing.”
Google is not only having a hard antitrust time in Europe but in the US where parent company Alphabet is accused of abusing its market power in the online search business.
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