NortonLifeLock buys rival Avast

Article Excerpt

NORTONLIFELOCK INC. $25 is a buy. The company (Nasdaq symbol NLOK; High-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 581.3 million; Market cap: $14.5 billion; Dividend yield: 2.0%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Average; www.nortonlifelock.com) sold its Enterprise Security business to Broadcom (Nasdaq symbol AVGO) in late 2019 for $10.7 billion. The company used the cash to fund a $12.00-a-share special dividend. It also increased the regular quarterly dividend by 66.7%, to $0.125 a share. The new annual rate of $0.50 yields a solid 2.0%. The company has now agreed to buy European cybersecurity firm Avast plc for $8 billion. Avast makes both free and premium security software for consumers. That product is focused on desktop security, and server and mobile-device protection. Avast has 435 million active users and its 2020 revenue was roughly $893 million. To put that into perspective, NortonLifeLock reported revenue of $672 million in the latest quarter. NortonLifeLock is a buy. buy. …