Barracuda Networks Goes Private, Shares Jump 15%

Shares of Barracuda Networks Inc CUDA jumped more than 15 percent Monday after the company agreed to sell itself to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $1.6 billion.

What You Need To Know: Barracuda Networks, a leading provider of cloud-enabled security and data protection solutions, agreed to sell itself to Thoma Bravo for $27.55 per share in an all-cash transaction. The price tag implies a premium of more than 22 percent to Barracuda's 10-day average stock price.

Why It's Important: Investors will likely speculate which security company, if any, will follow Barracuda's lead and go private. CEO BJ Jenkins said in a press release that the transaction offers an " opportunity for us to accelerate our growth with our industry-leading security platform that's purpose-built for highly distributed, diverse cloud and hybrid environments."

"Thoma Bravo has an excellent history of investing in growing security businesses, and this transaction speaks to the value and strength of Barracuda's security platform, which helps customers protect and manage their networks, applications, and data. I expect that our employees, customers, and partners will benefit from this partnership," the executive said.

What's Next: Barracuda will now operate as a private company but will continue to focus on its core products of e-mail security and management, network and application security, and data protections solutions in a cloud environment. The deal is expected to close prior to Feb. 28, 2018 and remains subject to approval by shareholders and regulatory authorities.

Barracuda traded at $27.51 at time of publication.

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