Network Associates Completes McAfee.com Buyout

Network Associates McAfee.com

Network Associates, based here, said it expects the merger of the companies to be completed by the close of Nasdaq Friday.

The company, based here, already owned about 75 percent of McAfee.com, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of online antivirus services that it spun out as a publicly traded company in December 1999.

By merging McAfee.com back into the corporate fold, Network Associates executives said they hoped to eliminate market confusion and streamline sales efforts.

"Over the last three years the McAfee.com team has moved aggressively into the consumer market and driven the evolution of online security and antivirus services," George Samenuk, chairman and CEO of Network Associates, said in a prepared statement.

"Network Associates will build on that success to extend those services more deeply into the consumer, small and home office, small and medium business and service provider markets," he said.

Network Associates originally offered to acquire the remaining shares of McAfee.com in March but delayed the bid after disclosing that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating its fiscal 2000 accounting practices. It quickly renewed the bid but delayed it again after finding inaccuracies in its 1999 and 2000 financial reports.

In July, the company again renewed its bid after filing restated financial statements, but the McAfee.com board rejected it as inadequate. Last month, Network Associates sweetened its bid, which a McAfee.com committee accepted.