Security vendor Grisoft has snapped up its independent UK subsidiary AVG and is gearing up for a global rebrand.

AVG UK has represented Grisoft in the UK for the past five years and has overseen and managed its growing channel base. Financial details of the acquisition have not been revealed.

Michael Foreman, vice president UK and Ireland at AVG, said: “Initially, we were Grisoft’s UK business partner, but this acquisition gives Grisoft a direct presence in the market.”

Foreman said all AVG staff will be kept on under the deal and the company has worked hard to keep all its key resellers informed on all new developments.

“We are very happy to know that all our staff are staying and all the resellers are sticking with AVG,” he said. “We will now be able to give them a direct relationship with Grisoft.”

The company will initially keep its AVG Technologies name, but Grisoft is planning a global rebrand to call it AVG, part of the Grisoft Group.

As a result of the acquisition, Foreman said the firm plans to continue with its channel expansion plans.

“We want to reiterate to our resellers that we have no plans to change anything and will continue offering all the same services as before. We want everything to go as smoothly as possible.” he said. “But now we have the investment from Grisoft, we plan to keep growing our reseller base and offering even more services to our existing partners.”

Ian Dunsten, managing director of AVG partner Cobalt Computer Solutions, welcomed the deal.
“This will give AVG more clout directly from Grisoft. AVG has done a fantastic job over the past few years and has a really good product.

Now it can only be better and hopefully we will get the Grisoft products out to market even more quickly as a result.”