Intel sells off majority stake in McAfee unit

From InfoWorld: Intel is selling off a majority stake in its McAfee unit and turning it back into an independent security company.

Intel made the deal with investment firm TPG, which will own a 51 percent stake in the new McAfee company. Intel will own the remainder.

As part of the deal, Intel is receiving $3.1 billion in cash. It originally bought McAfee back in 2011 for $7.7 billion -- a deal that caused some industry watchers to scratch their heads.

Intel is best known as a chipmaker, but at the time it was also hoping to improve security around its products. PC security was a major concern back then, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. But now cyberthreats are moving to target the cloud and servers.

"McAfee had relatively little to do in cloud security. While Intel didn't lose a lot of money, it never was a huge win," he said.

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