By Jim Finkle and Franklin Paul
NEW YORK (Reuters) - McAfee Inc, the No. 2 security software maker, likes small and medium-sized acquisitions of up to about $350 million and sees no need for a transformative deal to challenge larger rival Symantec Corp.
McAfee Chief Executive Dave DeWalt said on Wednesday he aims to accelerate revenue growth in 2009 and 2010 beyond the company's target of mid-teens percentage growth for 2008.
Growth should come through a combination of new products, partnerships with technology companies, and acquisitions like the $50-million-to-$350-million deals McAfee has made in the past, DeWalt said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.
"We don't necessarily need to acquire large to do this. This is a strategy for us where acquiring technologies and building and partnering is clearly a path that we can create to grow the company to much more sizable than it is today," he said.
"We tend to do two to three acquisitions a year. We've been consistent with that," said DeWalt, a sports enthusiast who competes in triathlons. "We continue to like to do what we call small and medium-sized acquisitions."
The CEO, who has been with McAfee for about 14 months, said that security software has so far proven to be recession-proof because customers need to protect against viruses and data theft in rough times as much as when the economy is strong.
But he cautioned that his company could see a fallout down the road from the economic slump in the United States.
"Am I nervous? Do I read the headlines too? Yes," he said. Continued...
© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved.
| Paper | Aug 20 - 21, 2008 | Manufacturing |
| Japan Investment | Jul 01 - 2, 2008 | Country Summits |
| Global Real Estate | Jun 23 - 25, 2008 | Real Estate |
| Consumer and Retail | Jun 16 - 18, 2008 | Consumer Retail |
| Investment Outlook | Jun 09 - 12, 2008 | Financial Services / Exchanges |
