Network Associates Bumps Up McAfee.com Offer

Network Associates executives put its final bid on the
table for McAfee.com shareholders, saying they won’t
dilute their stock value any more to accommodate a merger.

Network Associates already owns 76 percent of McAfee.com’s outstanding
common stock.

If McAfee.com board of directors and shareholders sign off on the current
bid, they would receive $8 in cash and .675 of Network Associate stock in
exchange for every McAfee.com share.

A source close to McAfee.com said a special committee established earlier
this year is being reviewed to look at the Network Associates offer. A
timetable on the committee’s decision isn’t known.

The committee, board of directors and shareholders nixed a previous offer
July 31, saying the offer was financially inadequate and that Network
Associates should “increase its offer to a level that the board of
directors of McAfee.com can support or to promptly terminate and withdraw
its offer.”

Only four percent of McAfee.com’s class A shareholders bought into the
previous deal.

Today’s offer is much more cash-friendly than the previous offer; Network
Associates officials said the deal is 20 percent better than the previous
one, which gave McAfee.com shareholders .90 percent of Network Associates
stock in exchange.

George Samenuk, Network Associates chairman and chief executive officer,
said his company would also extend the deadline to Sept. 12 to give
shareholders time to make the exchange.

“We believe that the offer is fair to the public stockholders of both
McAfee.com and Network Associates,” he said. “The Network Associates Board
of Directors has determined that we will not accept further dilution or
cash expenditure to complete this transaction.”