Symantec has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Clearwell Systems. The acquisition of Clearwell will bring together the industry's leading eDiscovery, archiving and backup offerings to provide customers one of the most comprehensive information management solutions available. Under the terms of the agreement, Symantec will acquire Clearwell for a purchase price of approximately $390 million, net of Clearwell's existing cash balance of approximately $20 million. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval, and is expected to close in the September quarter.
"As information continues to grow at unprecedented rates, the biggest challenge for customers is to protect, manage and backup this information as well as have the ability to categorize and discover it efficiently," said Deepak Mohan, senior vice president, Information Management Group, Symantec. "The acquisition of Clearwell's market leading electronic discovery solution will further increase Symantec's ability to get the right information, to the right people, at the right time, while reducing overall legal review costs and limiting risk."
"Archiving and eDiscovery are two critical elements of information governance," said Aaref Hilaly, president and chief executive officer, Clearwell Systems. "By joining forces and combining the industry's leading archiving solution with the industry's leading eDiscovery solution, we will be uniquely positioned to deliver a seamless, integrated information governance workflow, benefitting both Symantec and Clearwell customers."
Clearwell's eDiscovery solution complements and enhances Symantec's Enterprise Vault eDiscovery capabilities to create a more complete end-to-end eDiscovery solution. The existing integration of Enterprise Vault with the Clearwell eDiscovery Platform positions Symantec to quickly help IT and legal users streamline and reduce the cost, time and risk of eDiscovery across the most relevant information sources including email, desktops, file servers, backups and the cloud.
This acquisition will expand Symantec's addressable market opportunity and will position the company as a leader in the fast-growing eDiscovery software market, which, according to Gartner, is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 14 percent and is estimated to reach $1.7 billion by 2014.
