Symantec Close To Buying VeriSign- Source

Symantec Corp is close to acquiring VeriSign Inc’s widely used technology for securing payments over the Internet as part of a deal worth $1.3 billion, said a person familiar with the matter. The person was not authorised to publicly discuss the effort. The two companies declined comment.

A deal would give Symantec, already the world’s biggest maker of security software, VeriSign’s Internet security business, including its crown jewel – the SSL technology for electronic payments and other Internet transactions.

Sale of the unit would leave VeriSign in one main business – managing more than 100 million Internet domain names, including those ending in .com and .net. Over the past three years, it has sold off or shut down nearly 20 business units to focus on its high-margin Internet domain business.

“The next step might be to sell the rest of the company,” said Jefferies & Co Analyst, Katherine Egbert. “Why not go all the way? Is this a natural progression?”