Google unveils plans to acquire Mandiant cybersecurity firm for $5.4 billion

Google revealed on Tuesday, March 8, that it is planning to acquire Mandiant, the publicly traded American cybersecurity company. The tech firm is investing about $5.4 billion for the purchase deal in its effort to provide better protection for its cloud customers.

Google said it would be paying $23 per share in cash for Mandiant, that was first established in 2004. As per CNBC, if the acquisition deal successfully pushes through, the cybersecurity firm will join the tech giant's cloud computing unit that is aiming to grow and expand as the same size as the leading players in the industry, such as the Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

The Mountain View, California headquartered tech firm's offer reportedly amounts to a premium of around 53% to Mandiant's stock price levels before the reports about Microsoft's interest to buy it came out last month. In any case, Mandiant's shares dropped two percent while Alphabet, Google's parent company, increased 0.2% to $2532.20 in pre-market trading on Tuesday.

Reuters reported that the acquisition will greatly improve Google's cloud computing biz which is generating over $19 billion per year. It is also expected to boost its security operations and advisory services.

"Organizations around the world are facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry," Google Cloud's chief executive officer, Thomas Kurian, said in a press release. "We look forward to welcoming Mandiant to Google Cloud to further enhance our security operations suite and advisory services, and help customers address their most important security challenges."

Mandiant's chief, Kevin Mandia, also said that it has always been a critical time for cybersecurity and since the company was launched in 2004, its never-changing goal is to effectively fight cyber attacks and provide protection for customers. "To that end, we are thrilled to be joining forces with Google Cloud and together, we will deliver expertise and intelligence at scale, changing the security industry," he said.

Finally, the acquisition deal between Google and Mandiant is still subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The agreement is expected to close before this year ends.