McAfee Corp., the cybersecurity company founded by tech eccentric John McAfee, has set the terms for its initial public offering, hoping to raise as much as $682 million in a deal that could value the company at $3.64 billion.
McAfee, based in San Jose, plans to sell 37 million shares at a price of $19 to $22 each. The stock will trade on Nasdaq, with the ticker symbol MCFE, the company said in an SEC filing.
Of the 37 million shares, 30,982,558 will come from the company and 6,017,442 from existing stockholders. McAfee expects to have 165.44 million Class A shares outstanding after the IPO.
In the six months through June 27, McAfee posted profit of $31 million, swinging from a loss of $146 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 9% to $1.4 billion from $1.29 billion.
John McAfee founded McAfee Associates in 1987 and ran it until 1994, when he left the company.
McAfee’s anti-virus software was a market leader along with Norton in the 1990s and 2000s. It sold itself to Intel INTC for $7.7 billion in 2011.
In 2016, Intel sold a 51% stake to the San Francisco private-equity firm TPG for $1.1 billion. In its IPO prospectus, McAfee cites TPG and Chicago PE firm Thoma Bravo as investors.
After leaving McAfee Associates, John McAfee founded a raft of companies, including Tribal Voice, which offers the PowWow chat program; QuorumEx and Future Tense Central.
In 2016 he sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president, losing to former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. He gave it another shot this year, to no avail.
McAfee was arrested last week in Spain and is facing extradition to the U.S. on tax evasion charges. In a statement announcing the charges, the Department of Justice noted “The indictment does not allege that during these years McAfee received any income or had any connection with the anti-virus company bearing his name.”