Avast Software Completes $1.3 Billion Acquisition of AVG Technologies

**Editor’s Note: Please click here for a recap of the biggest channel-impacting mergers in July-August 2016.**

Security software maker Avast Software is nearly doubling in size as its $1.3 billion acquisition of AVG Technologies is expected to close Friday.

AVG develops business, mobile and PC device security software applications. Both companies were founded in the Czech Republic in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and expanded internationally in the 2000s.

After the acquisition, Avast will protect one-third of the world’s PC users outside of China, it said. The company will grow from 230 million users to more than 400 million, 160 million of which will be mobile users.

Glenn Taylor, Avast’s chief of staff and general manager of SMB, tells Channel Partners the combined company provides the “traction needed to compete successfully in a competitive, rapidly evolving security landscape and, most importantly, respond to the immediate security needs of businesses.”

“For our partner ecosystem, we plan to integrate the Avast channel program into AVG’s program, so whether you sell an Avast or AVG security software product, we will deliver ongoing support,” he said. “Avast and AVG partners will have options to continue selling their current product portfolio or also explore Avast or AVG products, as well as take advantage of new services, future product innovations and customers of both brands. This is value that every AVG and Avast channel partner and business customer can share in — today and into the future.”

AVG has more than 10,000 channel partners and Avast has more than 2,000. They include MSPs, integrators, distributors and resellers.

“All of the feedback I’ve had has been positive,” Taylor said. “Most of the resellers want to know when they can sell the expanded product portfolio, which should come shortly after the closing.”

Integrating the partner programs will take 12 to 18 months to complete, he said.

“But we will seek ways to integrate elements immediately after close, when we can look deeper into the specifics and data underlying each of the existing programs,” Taylor said.

Vince Steckler has been named CEO of the new Avast, overseeing the combined operations of the two companies.

The acquisition will allow Avast to further enhance its Threat Labs with additional machine-learning technology for threat detection, allowing the company to focus more on new threats targeting mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) devices in homes, as well as threats like ransomware, according to the company.

The acquisition was announced in July. The deal involved Avast purchasing all of the outstanding ordinary shares of AVG for $25 per share in cash.