Merger trend continues with Cisco and Elastic making moves

The surge of mergers continues with Cisco revealing plans to acquire the French firm Sentryo on June 6 and Elastic reporting on June 5 it has entered into an agreement to buy Endgame.

Cisco’s interest in Sentryo centers on its technology that provides device visibility and security solutions for industrial control system (ICS) networks, which Cisco intends to combine with its intent-based network architecture. The two firms have previously worked together with Cisco having incorporated Sentryo’s Edge Sensor with Cisco’s industrial networking hardware with Cisco’s IOx application framework.

Financial details were not released, but the deal is expected to close before the end of Cisco’s first quarter fiscal year 2020 ending October 26, 2019. Also required are the customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including in France.

Elastic’s deal, which has gained approval from both company boards, has that company paying $234 million in Elastic stock to acquire endpoint protection firm Endgame.

“The proposed acquisition will further advance Elastic's ability to offer a comprehensive security solution focused on endpoint security and integrated with Elastic's existing SIEM efforts,” Elastic stated.

The merger is expected to close during Elastic’s fiscal third quarter pursuant to meeting legal considerations which include it being agreed to by Elastic’s shareholders.

Elastic is the firm behind Elasticsearch and Elastic Stack.

These two deals join Imperva acquiring Distil Networks, Insight Partners acquiring Recorded Future, Palo Alto buying Twistlock and PureSec, Sophos taking over Rook Security and FireEye snapping up Verodin.