News
WatchGuard Technologies Completes Acquisition of Panda Security
June 2020 by Marc Jacob
WatchGuard Technologies announced that it has closed the acquisition of the advanced endpoint protection provider, Panda Security. WatchGuard announced the signing of a definitive agreement to purchase Panda in March 2020. Panda is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of WatchGuard, and the combined company will enable its current and future customers and partners to consolidate their fundamental security services for protection from network to endpoint under a single company.
The immediate focus of the combined company is to provide partners and customers from both companies access to the newly expanded portfolio of security solutions. Once the portfolios are integrated, partners and customers will benefit from advanced threat detection and response functionality fuelled by modern AI capabilities, behaviour profiling techniques, and cutting-edge security event correlation, as well as additional operational benefits such as centralised management across network and endpoint security.
Panda Security Early Access Program
WatchGuard resellers will enjoy immediate access to Panda Adaptive Defense 360, which includes both endpoint protection platform (EPP) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, and Advanced Reporting Tool products via the Panda Security Early Access Program, launching on 1 June 2020. This new program will put these exciting new products into the hands of WatchGuard partners quickly for training and internal deployment, as well as resale to end users.
As part of the transaction, Investing Profit Wisely (IPW) will join Vector Capital and Francisco Partners as a shareholder in WatchGuard Technologies. Juan Santamaria Uriarte will join the WatchGuard board of directors. WatchGuard was represented in the transaction by Paul Hastings LLP and Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira LLP. Additionally, Jefferies International acted as sole financial advisor to Panda Security, and Uría Menéndez acted as legal advisor to the sellers of Panda Security in this transaction.
