Taylor Wessing advises MWR InfoSecurity on its £105m sale to F-Secure

International law firm Taylor Wessing has advised MWR InfoSecurity, a privately held global cyber security company, operating globally from its main offices in the UK, the US, South Africa and Singapore, on its sale to F-Secure for a maximum enterprise value of £105 million.

With the acquisition of all outstanding shares of MWR InfoSecurity, this sale now makes F-Secure Europe's largest single source of cyber security services, detection and response solutions.

The transaction will complete in early July and MWR InfoSecurity's CEO, Ian Shaw, will join F-Secure's Leadership Team. The initial cash consideration is £80 million, subject to customary cash debt and working capital adjustments. In addition, an earn-out of a maximum of £25 million in cash, will be paid after 18 months of completion subject to the achievement of agreed business targets.

The combined company will have hundreds of the world’s best cyber security consultants, making F-Secure one of the few truly global technical security advisors positioned to help organisations fight today’s most sophisticated threats. Learnings from the most challenging incident investigations and from targeted attack simulations provide insights that feed directly back into product creation, ensuring the company’s detection and response solutions are constantly upgraded to meet the latest threats.

Commenting on the transaction, partner Howard Palmer said: "Organisations today are faced with a number of nuanced and complex security challenges. Traditional security measures are no longer enough to gurantee safety and there is ever increasing demand for offerings that can prevent any threats to an organisation. F-Secure acquiring MWR InfoSecurity will bring unparrelled access detection and response capabilites to its clients, making this a landmark deal for the future of security. It was a pleasure to advise such a cutting-edge and innovative client on this deal and we wish this new global group every success for the future."

The team was led by Howard Palmer with corporate support from senior associate Ben Richards and associate Elinor Picton. Tax advice was provided by partner Robert Young and tax associate Eithne Bloice-Sanders and employee benefits advice from partner Anna Humphrey.