Sophos

The company offers protection for the market of enterprises, educational organizations, the public sector. Sophos protects against known and new malware and spyware samples, ON offers systems for preventing unauthorized intrusion and installing unwanted applications, has a built-in anti-spam solution, and supports NAC (Network Access Control) access control technology.

More than 100 million users in 150 countries around the world see Sophos as the most robust protection against threats and data loss. Sophos software solutions are used for encryption, endpoint security and Internet access, network security, and secure email and mobile devices. The effectiveness of these solutions is supported by the research and development of SophosLabs, an international network of research centers in the field of information security.

Sophos is focused on Endpoint Security and Network Security.

History

2023: Dismissal of 10% of employees

On January 18, 2023, Sophos announced mass layoffs that would reduce the company's headcount by about 10%. It clarifies that TechCrunch approximately 450 employees will be dismissed.

The reduction will affect Sophos divisions in different regions. In particular, employees of the company in India received appropriate notifications: they were invited to submit their own applications for care. It is known that layoffs can affect all job levels, but Sophos does not name the exact number of employees being cut.

Sophos is laying off about 450 employees

The main reason for the decrease in staff is the difficult macroeconomic situation. It is said, in particular, that this measure is necessary to maintain an optimal balance of growth and profitability in the long term. In addition, the reorganization will allow Sophos to redistribute investments in order to fulfill the strategic task of providing cybersecurity services according to the "as a service" model.

Sophos said the plan for job cuts was to focus more on cybersecurity services, particularly "managed threat detection and rapid response." According to a company spokesman, this is done in order to strengthen its position in the global cybersecurity market. It is noted that the managed services business brings the company more than $175 million per year and grows by more than 50% annually. The reorganization is expected to strengthen this area. The company said layoffs must ensure an "optimal balance of growth and profitability" is achieved amid an ongoing and deepening global economic slowdown. More than half a million organizations around the world use Sophos technology, and the reorganization will help increase the number of customers.^[1]

2021

Purchase of Refactr Security Check Automation Product Developer

In early August 2021, the manufacturer of solutions for cyber security Sophos Group acquired an American developer of products to automate security checks and eliminate vulnerabilities in. ON Refactr Financial The terms of the deal were not disclosed. More. here

Buy Braintrace software developer to help businesses detect malicious traffic

On July 23, 2021, it became known that Sophos announced the acquisition of Braintrace, a cybersecurity startup that provides organizations with the ability to track suspicious network traffic. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read more here.

Buying a Cloud Security Solution Developer Capsule8

In mid-July 2021, Sophos acquired Capsule8 's server and cloud security startup Linux. Read more here.

2019

Thoma Bravo bought Sophos for £3.1bn

On October 14, 2019, the investment company Thomas Bravo announced the acquisition of Sophos for 3.1 billion pounds sterling (about $3.8 billion), taking into account the debts of the British manufacturer of cybersecurity solutions.

Under the terms of the agreement, Sophos shareholders will receive $7.4 of cash for each security they own, which is 37% of the quotation rate by the close of the exchange on October 11, 2019 and twice the value of shares at the time the company went public in 2015. After the announcement of the sale of the company, its shares rose by 36.6% on Monday, October 14, 2019.

Thomas Bravo bought the information security company Sophos for $3.8 billion

Sophos founders Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer have agreed to sell their stakes in the company (about 16.3% in total) and will receive £218 and £250m from Thoma Bravo, respectively.

As part of the deal, Sophos was advised on financial matters by J.P. Morgan Cazenove, Lazard and the UK representative office of UBS, and investment bank Goldman Sachs acted as financial adviser to Thomas Bravo.

According to the Financial Times, the Sophos deal was another purchase in the software market for Thomas Bravo in recent years, but the first outside the United States.

According to Seth Boro, managing partner of Thoma Bravo, the global market for information security technologies is growing very quickly due to technological innovations, as well as an increase in the number of cyber threats and an increase in the complexity of cyber attacks on companies.

For Sophos, the 18 months leading up to the Thomas Bravo deal were problematic. Amid weakening demand, cybersecurity tools, the company recorded weak financial performance and built suboptimistic forecasts. As a result, Sophos capitalization in 2018 decreased by a third.^[2]

Sophos released a free utility to run any Windows application in the sandbox

On September 12, 2019, Sophos made a free utility that allows you to host any application in a secure virtual environment ("sandbox") and exercise full control over its operation. We are talking about the Sandboxie program, which also became open source. Read more here.

Purchase of Rook Security Cyber Threat Response Software Developer

In early June 2019, Sophos announced the acquisition of cyber threat response software developer Roke Security. Read more here.

Avid Secure Cloud Software Developer Purchase

In January 2019, Sophos announced the acquisition of cloud security software developer Avid Secure to offer customers comprehensive protection for public cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud. Read more here.

2015: Going public

On June 26, 2015, Sophos announced that it was going public. This IPO has become one of the largest involving British IT companies.

As follows from the Sophos message, the company successfully placed about 156.6 million shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) at a price of 225 British pence (1 pence is approximately equal to 2 American cents). In total, 34.8% of the total number of securities will be sold, as a result of which it is planned to raise about $125 million ($100 million more than previously expected). Sophos' market capitalization at the start of trading was £1.013 billion (about $1.6 billion).

British antivirus developer Sophos held an IPO and was valued at $1.6 billion

"Sophos has reached a milestone for all of us," says Sophos CEO Chris Hagerman. - We are proud that by listing on the stock exchange, we have become an integral part of the growing British IT economy and a leading provider of solutions in the cybersecurity sector. Working with our global channel of 15,000 partners, we look forward to the next stage of development as a public company and continue to supply full-fledged and at the same time easy-to-use information security products to companies of all sizes. "

Sophos intends to spend the funds raised as part of the IPO to pay off debts (their size reached $319 million by the end of April 2015) and "provide the company with greater financial flexibility to increase the volume of business in the future."

As noted by the Financial Times, Sophos went public on the third attempt. In 2007, she abandoned the IPO literally at the last moment due to the global financial crisis.

In 2010, the antivirus vendor returned to the issue of placing securities on the stock exchange, but the founders of the company, Dr. Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer, decided instead to sell a controlling stake in Sophos to private investment firm Apax Partners. As a result of that transaction, the company was valued at $830 million.

After the IPO, Apax's stake in Sophos will decrease from 65% to 40%. Hrushka and Lammer will have approximately 18.9% of the shares.^[3]

Notes