McAfee revs up its dealmaking; buys Secure Computing

McAfee (NYSE: MFE) is the No. 2 player in the security software market. But the company's CEO, Dave DeWalt, definitely wants to be No. 1. In fact, he's been putting together a string of acquisitions to pump things up.

The latest deal came this week: McAfee purchased Secure Computing Corp. (NASDAQ: SCUR) for $465 million. On news of the deal, the company's shares spiked 23% to $5.58.

Secure Computing itself is an amalgam of a variety of acquisitions. For the most part, the company's products help deal with e-mail intrusions and network security. However, Secure Computing has had difficulties integrating its deals. As a result, the company has missed expectations on several earnings releases, which put lots of pressure on the stock price.

For some more insight on McAfee's latest deal I turned to Paul Roberts, Senior Analyst of Enterprise Security at The 451 Group, who said:

"Consolidation has been a long time coming in the enterprise security market. Despite persistent rumors that it might be acquired by a much bigger player, McAfee shows all intentions of staying independent and being one of the survivors, rather than road kill, as the enterprise security market consolidates. In the last twelve months, the company has made bold bets on data encryption and anti data leakage. This deal re-introduces McAfee as a player in the network security space after it was forced to downsize a few years back. We're interested to see how the company knits together the disparate technologies it has acquired."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website