Just three days after Oracle and PeopleSoft signed a truce in their protracted shareholder war via a $10.3 billion merger agreement, security software provider Symantec Corp. agreed to pay $13.5 million to purchase data storage and recovery software concern Veritas Software Corp.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter 2005.
When the deal is completed, Symantec shareholders would own roughly 60 percent of the combined company, which will operate under the Symantec brand going forward.
Symantec chairman and chief executive John W. Thompson will remain in those posts, while Veritas chief executive Gary Bloom will become president and vice-chairman.
Symantec, maker of Norton anti-virus software, said that the acquisition would allow it to expand its product offerings into the corporate software market and use a sales staff that is trained to sell to large companies. The combined company will have aggregate revenues of $5 billion.
