The investigation and incident response specialist Mandiant is being courted more and more. And it is finally Google Cloud that announced the acquisition of the specialist in investigation and incident response for an amount of $ 5.4 billion.
After the split with FireEye, Mandiant’s future was in question. At the beginning of February, the financial press reported an interest from Microsoft to acquire the investigation and incident response specialist. According to The Information (on subscription), a second player, and not the least, Google, would be positioned to buy Mandiant. The Mountain View company would have made an offer in this sense.
Just like Microsoft, Google could thus strengthen its security offer in its cloud offer, especially in the incident response and remediation area. For several months, Google Cloud has been gaining power in this area of security, as shown by the acquisition of Siemplify last January for $500 million. However, the security business is still marginal compared to Microsoft, which generated more than $15 billion in revenues in this area last year.
With this renewed interest, Mandiant’s share price soared by more than 16% yesterday to $22.49 per share. The company is valued at $5.26 billion. The company is growing rapidly, with revenues of $133 million in Q4 2021 (ended December 31), up 21% year-on-year. It regularly intervenes with victims of hacking. In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, Mandiant’s expertise could become even more valuable. Will we see a bidding war?
UPDATE: From rumor to reality there is only one step. Google Cloud has just announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with Mandiant for its acquisition. The cloud provider is proposing a price of $23 per share for a total of $5.4 billion.
