Blue Coat Systems to Be Bought by Thoma Bravo

Blue Coat Systems Inc., a maker of Internet-security software, agreed to be bought by an investor group led by led by Thoma Bravo LLC for about $1.3 billion.

The deal is the fourth-largest Internet-security acquisition since December 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average premium of 120 U.S. Internet-security companies acquired since at that time was 24 percent, the largest being McAfee Inc.’s $7.7 billion sale to Intel Corp. last year, the data show. Blue Coat is Thoma Bravo’s fifth security-research investment, the firms said in the statement.

Terrific outcome for shareholders

"This is a terrific outcome for shareholders," Jesse Cohn, a portfolio manager at Elliott Management Corp., wrote in an e-mail. The New York-based hedge fund owns 13 percent of the company, he said. "Blue Coat has leading research in good markets, and we are pleased this compelling value was recognized."

The group of buyers, which included the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, made the agreement a day afterwards International Business Machines Corp. said it will buy the Web analytics company DemandTec Inc. for $440 million. On Dec. 3, SAP AG agreed to buy SuccessFactors Inc. for $3.4 billion in cash to boost its Internet-computing, or so-called cloud, offerings.