Jamf Holding Corp., the Minneapolis-based manager of Apple devices for businesses, is buying Wandera, a security technology company, for $400 million.
The all-cash deal is the biggest ever for Jamf and will help it offer more security capabilities to corporate customers.
Jamf announced the deal late Tuesday when it also released quarterly results that showed another sizable revenue gain and a smaller operating loss. The company has maintained a growth rate in excess of 36% to its annual recurring revenue for four straight quarters.
But Jamf shares fell 5% to $29.86 on Wednesday, falling below $30 for the first time since January. The stock traded as high as $40.51 in February.
"We don't get it," David Hynes, analyst at Canaccord Genuity, wrote in a note to investors Wednesday. "Perhaps there's fear that the firm will have to access the capital markets to fund its deal for Wandera."
Jamf said it planned to pay for Wandera with $160 million of cash on hand and a loan for the rest.
Wandera, started in 2012 and based in San Francisco, is a rising player in a niche of the data security industry known for an approach called "zero trust." Users in a zero-trust network must provide several forms of authentication to prove their identity before they can proceed to work.
The zero-trust approach gained attention and market share during the pandemic, when many corporate employees worked from home and needed access to applications and data from there or other remote locations.
