McAfee plans to shutter a development centre in Israel next week and lay off most of the 60 employees working there, according to media reports Tuesday.
The platform security company is expected to move its Tel Aviv operations overseas as a cost-cutting measure less than three months after going public, according to Globes. Most of the 50 research and development employees and 10 salespeople at the Tel Aviv facility will be laid off when the facility closes 21 January, Globes said.
McAfee didn’t immediately respond to a CRN US request for comment.
McAfee’s stock jumped up US$1.19 per share (6.5 percent) Tuesday to US$19.49 per share, which is the highest the company’s stock has traded since a Oct. 22, 2020 initial public offering that valued the company at US$9.5 billion.
The soon-to-be-shuttered Israeli development centre has been involved in McAfee’s development of several security products such as MVision Insights and McAfee Unified Cloud Edge, according to Calcalist. McAfee revealed last year that the Tel Aviv centre also plays a role in data loss prevention (DLP) activities, Calcalist reported.
In September 2019, Cohavit Almagor was brought over from Palo Alto Networks to lead McAfee’s Israeli R&D operations, according to Globes. The company’s Israeli commercial operations are led by Yaniv Nezri, who’s been with McAfee since March 2015.
Read the article by Michael Novinson in CRN.