[German]The German Avira GmbH & Co. KG from Tettnang, which sells anti-virus solutions under the name Avira, is being acquired by the investor group Investcorp from the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Investcorp acquires majority in Avira
Avira announced today, 9 April 2020, that it has agreed into a partnership with Investcorp Technology Partners (ITP), an investor group from the Kingdom of Bahrain. The first hint came through this comment in my German blog (thanks for that). However, the announcement from Avira does not contain too much detail.
Techcrunch has published this article on the subject. According to it, Avira was valued at 180 million US dollars, according to Travis Witteveen (CEO of Avira) and Gilbert Kamieniecky (Managing Director of ITP). However, details of the transactions were not disclosed. However, if you go to the website of ITP, you will find this announdment:
Investcorp Technology Partners, a leading European technology investor, today announces that it has agreed to acquire Avira Holding GmbH & Co KG and ALV GmbH & Co KG ("Avira") for US $180 million.
According to this announcement, 180 million US dollars are being spent to overtake a majority shareholding in Avira GmbH & Co. KG from Tettnang through ITP, whereby Avira founder Tjark Auerbach will retain a "significant" stake in the deal. The aim of the takeover is to ensure that Avira receives sufficient capital to continue to grow.
Investcorp Technology Partners (ITP) has in the past been able to acquire large shares in Utimaco, Sophos, Opity, SecureLink, CoreSec, Nebulas, iT-CUBE, CSID, OpSec and Impero. Now we have to wait and see whether the cartel office approves this takeover.
Avira is a German company, which should be known to many readers due to its virus protection of the same name. It was founded in 1986 as H+BEDV Datentechnik by Tjark Auerbach. The present Avira GmbH & Co. KG is located in Tettnang on Lake Constance and has about 500 employees. According to its own statement, Avira protects around 500 million devices worldwide with its virus scanners.
Investcorp was founded in 1982 and is a Bahrain-based financial institution that operates worldwide in the private equity business. Investcorp Bank B.S.C., based in Manama, has a licence as a universal bank. It holds 100 percent of the shares of its subsidiary Investcorp Holdings Limited (IHL), which is based on the Cayman Islands and which in turn holds 100 percent of its subsidiary Investcorp S.A., also based on the Cayman Islands. (ISA), also located in the Cayman Islands.
