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Offer made for McAfee.com shares

Network Associates plans to acquire the publicly held shares of the antivirus company for a premium of about 20 percent more than Friday's closing price of $15.54.

Scott Ard Former Editor in Chief, CNET
CNET former Editor in Chief Scott Ard has been a journalist for more than 20 years and an early tech adopter for even longer. Those two passions led him to editing one of the first tech sections for a daily newspaper in the mid 1990s, and to joining CNET part-time in 1996 and full-time a few years later.
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Scott Ard
Network Associates said late Sunday it will acquire the shares of McAfee.com that it does not already own for a premium of about 20 percent more than Friday's closing price.

Network Associates, a maker of security software, sold shares in McAfee.com to the public in 1999 at the high of the dot-com boom. It owns about 75 percent of the antivirus site.

Under terms of the deal, McAfee.com shareholders will be offered 0.675 shares of Network Associates stock for each McAfee.com share owned.

Network Associates' shares closed at $27.61 Friday, which values each McAfee.com share at $18.64, 20 percent more than the current price, the company said.

If the offer is completed, McAfee.com would once again become a subsidiary of Network Associates.

"This recombination is intended to deliver on the promise we made 14 months ago to focus Network Associates on customer needs, eliminate confusion across business units and streamline our operations," George Samenuk, CEO of Network Associates, said in a statement.