The agreement between Sonae IM and Nextel, signed in June, will merge two of the leading firms in the Spanish security sector. The resulting company will be the largest pure-play security provider in Spain and Portugal, both in terms of revenue and the number of experts on staff. The new entity, whose brand strategy will be announced in the coming months, will have more than 400 cybersecurity specialists and a client portfolio that includes most of the listed companies and large corporations in both countries.
“With the merger with Nextel, we are consolidating a project that began in 2014 with our investment in S21sec, and it is a key step in our plan to position this firm as the leading company in Spain and Portugal and enter the top five in Europe,” explains Carlos Alberto Silva, Managing Partner of Sonae IM. “And we continue to analyze other companies in Europe and Latin America to further develop this growth plan.”.
“This initiative will allow us to leverage our experience and our leading managed services offering,” explains Agustín Muñoz-Grandes, CEO of S21sec, “as we will be able to offer these services to the resulting client base.”
“The role the merged company will play in the Basque Country will be especially important,” Muñoz-Grandes explains, “since both companies have their headquarters there, the firm will undoubtedly be a benchmark in the region, relevant to all the initiatives being promoted by organizations such as the Basque Government and the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa.”
From Nextel, its CEO, José Ramón Bazo, points out that “the merger with S21sec and the entry into this project led by Sonae IM will create the largest cybersecurity company in Spain and Portugal, with a broad portfolio of products and services covering all areas of expertise.” “This merger,” Bazo assures, “will strengthen the organization’s technical and delivery capabilities, with the shared goal of leveraging both companies’ experience with the SOC-CERT that S21sec established in 2005, which boasts a level of expertise difficult for any other SOC in Spain to match.”
New headquarters in Madrid, new SOC center.
In addition to the announcement of the merger between S21sec and Nextel, Sonae IM has announced that at the end of this year, the company will move to a new headquarters in Madrid, in what will be the Group’s corporate building.
