Larry Fink and his team may soon be diving into cybersecurity.
| Laurence D. Fink BlackRock Chairman, CEO | |
Fink's
BlackRock [
profile], the world's largest asset manager, is "in advanced talks" to take over
Cofense,
Reuters reports. Leesburg, Virginia-based Cofense (the team pitches the firm as "the leader in intelligent phishing defense) is a cybersecurity firm whose backers have included
Adam Street Partners and
Telstra Ventures, as well as BlackRock (which owns 30 percent of Cofense).
Back in April, Cofense
reportedly confirmed that
Pamplona Capital Management was looking to sell its 47 percent stake in Cofense after inquiries from the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (
CFIUS). In a $400-million leveraged buyout, Pamplona
invested in Cofense in 2018, yet word has it that a big Pamplona investor, Russian billionaire
Mikhail Fridman, is on a U.S. Treasury Department "oligarchs' watchlist" over possible Kremlin ties.
"The process remains ongoing and we are working diligently towards a solution," the Pamplona team reportedly stated. 
Edited by:
Neil Anderson, Managing Editor
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