McAfee Enterprise and FireEye Products merge to create $2bn-revenue cybersecurity colossus

The private equity firm bought both businesses this year and plans to form a cybersecurity behemoth

Private equity firm Symphony Technology Group (STG) plans to merge its buys of FireEye Products and McAfee Enterprise to form a new company with revenues of $2bn (€1.7bn).

STG claims the merger will create a "pure play, cybersecurity market leader" with more than 40,000 customers and 5,000 employees.

"Cyber risk is the number one threat facing modern organisations and we are excited to advance our growing portfolio of cybersecurity companies," said STG co-founder and managing partner, William Chisholm.

FireEye's Bryan Palma will head up the combined company as its CEO while Ian Halifax, who recently joined McAfee Enterprise as chief financial officer, will become CFO of the combined entity.

"I am energised to lead the integration of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye Products into the next chapter of our shared journey," said Palma.

"Our customers need an integrated security platform powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. We have an incredibly talented team of security professionals who will work tirelessly to deliver this outcome for our customers."

The merger is expected to be completed by Q4.

STG snapped up McAfee's enterprise business for $4bn (€3.4bn) in March while the private equity player bought FireEye's products business in June in an all-cash transaction for $1.2bn (€986m).

The latter deal saw the separation of FireEye's network, email, endpoint, and cloud security products, along with the related security management and orchestration platform, from Mandiant's (bought by FireEye in 2014) controls-agnostic software and services.