McAfee has announced a definitive agreement to acquire rival Secure Computing in a $465m (£252m) deal.

McAfee - the world’s second largest security vendor behind Symantec - said the purchase would hand it a leading position in the network security space with combined network security revenues of $500m.

Secure has struggled to fulfil its ambitions growth expectations and said its purchase by McAfee would allow it to reap the benefits of a sales team three times its size.

Secure's share price has plummeted in recent months although McAfee’s $5.75 a share offer represents a 27 per cent premium on its closing price of $4.52 on Friday.
Following the deal’s expected closure in the latter part of Q4, McAfee anticipates that Secure’s technologies will be incorporated under its Network Security business unit – to be headed by Secure’s chief executive Dan Ryan.

Ryan said: "I believe the combination of the two companies will allow us to reap the benefits of a worldwide dedicated sales team three times our size, best-in-class security research, greater partner distribution and enhanced cross-selling opportunities.

“Combined, we believe we will become a leader in the network security space. "

Dave DeWalt, chief executive officer and president of McAfee, said: “We expect the pending combination of McAfee and Secure Computing will create an annual projected combined revenue of just under $500 million in the network security segment of our SRM [security risk management] portfolio.

“We believe that this pending acquisition will allow us to immediately establish a leading and highly competitive position in the network security space."