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Officials at Sourcefire turned down an unsolicited acquisition attempt by Barracuda Networks May 30, calling the bid too low.
Barracuda, which makes e-mail and Web security appliances, proposed to acquire all outstanding shares of common stock for $7.50 per share in cash, a 13 percent premium above the company’s May 23 closing price. The price also represented a 34 percent premium over the enterprise value as of May 23, and 16 percent over the average trading stock price during the past 60 trading days.
In a press statement, Barracuda CEO Dean Drako said the acquisition would reflect his company’s commitment to the open-source community.
“Sourcefire has made very powerful contributions to open-source efforts worldwide through its acquisition of ClamAV and its continued development of SNORT, the de facto Intrusion Detection and Prevention technology,” he said in a prepared statement. “The combined company will be a more effective and profitable competitor with the ability to better meet the evolving demands of the market.”
Sourcefire purchased ClamAV, an open-source antivirus project. At the time, Sourcefire officials said the purchase would help expand the company’s open-source footprint and lay the foundation for new products and services across its enterprise threat management network security portfolio. Barracuda uses ClamAV in its security products and is embroiled in a patent dispute with Trend Micro over how the open-source software is implemented in Barracuda’s products.
Sourcefire has struggled of late, posting a net loss in its first quarter 2008 earnings. News of the acquisition attempt raised Sourcefire stock to $7.55 mid-morning Friday.