Bitdefender hired JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley for the US listing at a valuation of nearly $2 billion, industry sources familiar with the company’s plans told ZF.
Contacted by ZF, company representatives declined to comment on the information. “According to the company’s corporate policy, we do not comment on speculations in the market. Our primary goal is to continue to provide added value to Bitdefender’s millions of customers – families, businesses and public institutions around the world – by eliminating cyber threats, protecting security and data, and ensuring cyber security,” Bitdefender representatives told ZF.
A stock market listing is a topic that the company’s founders have talked about frequently, with Florin Talpes saying often over the past decade that it is an important goal for the software company but was postponed each time to wait for a better time.
This year, however, the discussions have accelerated and market information on Bitdefender’s preparation to finally go public has intensified, fueled by the gesture made of the American stock exchange Nasdaq to congratulate the Romanian company on its 20th anniversary, with a message displayed on the stock exchange’s big screen in Times Square in New York.
“Nasdaq congratulates Bitdefender on 20 years of cybersecurity innovation” was the message displayed in New York. The message also provoked this reaction because Nasdaq made a similar gesture with UiPath – congratulating the company on its results months before the official listing announcement.
Bitdefender was valued four years ago at $600 million with the deal in which the Axxess Capital fund sold a 30% stake to Vitruvian Partners, a London-based private equity firm.
Bitdefender, which has more than 500 million users globally and competes with giants such as Norton and Kaspersky, had annual revenue of about EUR150 million and an operating profit of EUR25-30 million at the time of the 2017 deal, according to ZF data. The company does not provide global revenue data.
It posted 2020 revenue of RON870 million, up 30%, and a net profit of RON141 million, up 2,000% from the previous year. Most of the revenue comes from exports.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)