Belden To Acquire Privately-held Tripwire For $710 Mln Cash

(RTTNews) - Networking products maker Belden, Inc. (BDC) agreed Tuesday to acquire privately-held cyber security software company Tripwire, Inc. for $710 million in cash from Thoma Bravo, LLC. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

"As a leading supplier of signal transmission solutions for mission-critical networking applications, this acquisition is an important and natural extension of Belden's capabilities," Belden President and CEO John Stroup said in a statement.

The deal, which will add an important element to Belden's networking products portfolio, is immediately expected to add $0.65 per share to adjusted earnings from continuing operations in 2015.

Portland, Oregon-based Tripwire is a global leader in IT network security and compliance automation solutions that help businesses, government agencies, and service providers to confidently detect, prevent, and respond to growing security threats.

St. Louis, Missouri-based Belden and Tripwire are already in a partnership since September, when they decided to work together to improve infrastructure cybersecurity in manufacturing organizations.

Tripwire counts more than 5,700 government, businesses and service provider customers in 91 countries and also serves more than 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Tripwire has 450 employees, 89 percent of them in the U.S.

"We look forward to incorporating Tripwire technology into selected Belden products and providing Tripwire with access to existing Belden customers that are anxious to improve the robustness and security of their networks. This positions Belden as a leader in helping customers deploy and secure the 'Internet of Things," Stroup added.

Private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo acquired Tripwire after it dropped plans for an initial public offering in May 2011. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. It scrapped plans to go public after filing for an $86 million in 2010 on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Former Intel executive Jim Johnson remained CEO of Tripwire following that deal.

BDC closed Tuesday's regular trading session at $74.92, up $1.62 or 2.21% on a volume of 0.19 million shares.