Optiv Security to Be Acquired By KKR
December 06 2016 - 6:00AM
Business Wire
-- Leading Global Investment Firm to Support
Optiv’s Continued Business Growth and Accelerate Global Expansion
--
Optiv Security, a market-leading provider of end-to-end cyber
security solutions, and KKR, a leading global investment firm,
today announced the signing of a definitive agreement under which
KKR will acquire a majority stake in Optiv. The company is being
acquired from a group of private investors, including a private
equity fund managed by Blackstone (NYSE: BX), which will maintain a
minority interest in Optiv along with Optiv management. Other
selling shareholders include Investcorp and Sverica. Financial
terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.
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Over the past three years, Optiv has served more than 7,500
clients in 76 countries, including 71 of the Fortune 100 and 604 of
the Fortune 1000. Optiv was named to the 2016 Inc. 5000 as one of
North America’s fastest-growing private companies with a 97 percent
three-year growth rate. The company made several strategic
acquisitions this year to broaden its cyber security services and
solutions, and strengthen and expand its geographic footprint.
Optiv maintains strong relationships with established and emerging
security software providers and hardware manufacturers, serving as
the number one information security provider for 16 of its top 20
partners.
“Cyber security has been a growing focus and pain point for
companies over the last decade, and is now one of the highest
priorities for global enterprises. We have been following the
cyber security sector very closely over the past several years and
believe Optiv represents an attractive investment opportunity given
its market leadership as a critical partner and advisor to the
Global 1000,” Herald Chen, co-head of KKR’s Technology, Media &
Telecom investment team, said. “For KKR, this investment is
premised on partnering with an awesome management team to build
Optiv into a global security powerhouse by accelerating investment
in Optiv's product and service capabilities and expanding its
presence across the U.S. and internationally."
“More and more organizations are seeking an end-to-end cyber
security solutions provider at scale that has awareness over every
domain of cyber security and the ability to execute a comprehensive
security strategy,” said Dan Burns, Optiv’s chief executive
officer. “Blackstone has been an exceptional partner over the past
few years, providing Optiv the necessary resources to create a
truly unique platform with depth and breadth of offerings,
extensive capabilities and proven expertise in cyber security
strategy. This new investment from KKR will enable our company to
better help global clients address their full range of cyber risk
and security needs in a customized and integrated fashion. We are
excited about this agreement and look forward to working with KKR
to become the world’s most advanced, most comprehensive and most
trusted partner for cyber security solutions.”
“I am very proud of the success of the Blackstone and Optiv
partnership. The Blackstone team worked with a remarkable
management team who executed incredibly well to create Optiv, a
truly unique company, and the first scale, national, acquisition
platform in cyber security,” said Dave Johnson, senior advisor to
Blackstone.
"We were excited to identify the cyber security trend early when
we first invested in Optiv in 2014 and have seen tremendous growth
in the business and market opportunity since,” said Greg Blank,
managing director, Blackstone. "We are pleased to have helped
create and expand the platform under our ownership and are
delighted to stay on as partners with management and now KKR as
Optiv continues its stellar growth trajectory."
KKR is making the investment primarily from its eleventh
Americas Private Equity investment fund. KKR has a long record of
supporting technology companies, having invested over $18 billion
of equity in TMT-related private equity investments since 1983. KKR
has experience with a number of security related investments
including Darktrace (enterprise cyber threat defense software),
Ping Identity (next-generation identity security solutions) and
Cylance (next-generation endpoint protection company).
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of
2017 subject to customary closing conditions.
Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC served
as financial advisors to Optiv on the transaction. Kirkland &
Ellis LLP served as legal advisors and Jefferies LLC as financial
advisors to KKR. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal
advisors to Optiv and Blackstone.
About Optiv Security
Optiv is a market-leading provider of end-to-end cyber security
solutions. We help clients plan, build and run successful cyber
security programs that achieve business objectives through our
depth and breadth of cyber security offerings, extensive
capabilities and proven expertise in cyber security strategy,
managed security services, incident response, risk and compliance,
security consulting, training and support, integration and
architecture services, and security technology. A Blackstone (NYSE:
BX) portfolio company, Optiv maintains premium partnerships with
more than 400 of the leading security technology manufacturers. For
more information, visit www.optiv.com or follow us at
www.twitter.com/optiv, www.facebook.com/optivinc and
www.linkedin.com/company/optiv-inc.
About KKR
KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages investments
across multiple asset classes including private equity, energy,
infrastructure, real estate, credit and hedge funds. KKR aims to
generate attractive investment returns by following a patient and
disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and
driving growth and value creation at the asset level. KKR invests
its own capital alongside its partners' capital and brings
opportunities to others through its capital markets business.
References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its
sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co.
L.P. (NYSE:KKR), please visit KKR's website at www.kkr.com and on
Twitter @KKR_Co.
About Blackstone
Blackstone is one of the world’s leading investment firms. We
seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our
investors, the companies in which we invest, and the communities in
which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and
flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our asset
management businesses, with over $360 billion in assets under
management, include investment vehicles focused on private equity,
real estate, public debt and equity, non-investment grade credit,
real assets, and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further
information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow us on
Twitter @Blackstone.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161206005711/en/
Optiv SecuritySusan Vaillancourt,
603-459-8906susan.vaillancourt@optiv.comorKKRKristi Huller or Cara Kleiman,
212-230-9722media@kkr.com
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