Tech duo pocket £460 million as US swoop on FTSE software giant Sophos

THE founders of a UK cybersecurity specialist were set for a monster payday as US private equity giant Thoma Bravo snapped up London-listed Sophos for £3.2 billion.

Thoma Bravo will pay $7.40 per share, which is a 37.1% premium to the stock’s closing price last week.

The shares shot up 36% in trading today as Sophos recommended the deal to its investors.

Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer founded the firm in 1985 and own 18%.

Hruska stands to make £216.2 million, on his shares, which were worth £83.4 million at the firm’s 2015 float. Lamer walks away with £248 million from his £95.7 million of IPO shares.

The two Oxford university engineering graduates have come a long way since founding the firm in Abingdon, Oxfordshire to provide security software to early-stage computers.

Sophos provides IT security software to small businesses like dentists but has struggled over the past 18 months.

Its shares tumbled last November and again in January when it warned on slow growth, which combined with a weak pound made it a takeover target.

The deal is another coup for Chicago-based Thoma Bravo, which has focused on buying struggling cyber companies and turning them around.

In 2017 it bought Barracuda Networks for $1.6 billion and in December last year it bought McAfee.

Sophos chairman Peter Gyenes said of the takeover: “Thoma Bravo has deep sector expertise in cybersecurity software as well as a long and successful record of partnering with, and investing in, its portfolio companies to support long-term growth and success.”

The deal, if successful, would see another UK tech firm snapped up by a foreign buyer.

ARM and Imagination Technologies have been bought by foreign investors in recent years. Shares in London’s remaining large software firms, Avast and Sage, rose as investors hoped they could be bought next.

Bankers acting for Sophos include JPMorgan, Cazenove, Lazard and UBS and Goldman Sachs is working for the Bravo side.