IN 2013 at the latest Shareholders of Bitdefender postpone the company"s listing once again

The shareholders of Bitdefender are still reviewing taking the company public, but this may take place in 2012, when the company will have a "greater value", said the president of the Softwin group of companies, Florin Talpeş.

"As previously announced, 2012 was proposed as a deadline for the listing of Bitdefender, but the process will not take place next year. We want to enter the market when the company will have a consistent value. The listing will take place on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and on an international exchange. We want to go public on the local stock exchange, but the BSE itself must be strong, because we don"t want the listing to fail. If we had opted to go public in 2012, we would have limited ourselves to going public on a foreign stock exchange", said Talpeş, quoted by Mediafax.

Together with other shareholders, Talpeş controls Bitdefender SRL through Bitdefender Holding BV, a company registered in Holland. At the end f 2007, a group of Romanian and foreign investors acquired less than 7% of the shares of Bitdefender, for seven million dollars. Bitdefender SRL is the former IT security solutions division of the Softwin group of companies, controlled by Talpeş and his wife.

The Bitdefender brand was launched in 2001, after changing the name of the AVX antivirus (AntiVirus eXpert) made and sold by Softwin. In 2003, Softwin opened Bitdefender offices in Spain and Germany and one year later in the United States.

In 2007, the Bitdefender division separated from the Softwin group of companies, and due to growing sales, the management has announced its goal to reach a market share of 2% of the world antivirus market and getting listed on one of the major international exchanges in 2008-2009, a deadline which was later postponed for 2012, because of the financial crisis.

Last year, according to data available on the website of the Ministry of Communications, Bitdefender SRL had a turnover of 122.01 million lei (a 16.3% increase) and a net profit of 10.1 million lei (a 41.3% increase).

On the other hand, the company"s average number of employees fell from 425 to 379.

"Out of the total number of Bitdefender employees, 100 are located outside Romania and work in the company"s five offices in the United States (of Florida and California), Great Britain, Spain and Germany. The figures of the financial statements of Bitdefender SRL represent Romanian sales and a part of the international ones. Romania accounts for less than 5% of the revenues of Bitdefender", Talpeş said.

He added that Bitdefender will expand its international presence, by opening a new office outside Europe. The company has over 400 million customers.

When asked whether he would bring more investors into Bitdefender, Talpeş said that there have been talks with several investment funds on this subject, but did not go into further details.

On Tuesday, software security solutions maker Bitdefender launched new versions of its applications and a new visual brand, under the slogan Awake and having the Dacian wolf as a logo.

"On one hand, the need for a new identity is necessary due to the constant success which Bitdefender had (...). On the other hand, it reflects the company"s goal to penetrate new market segments by developing and implementing competitive technologies for fighting contemporary information technologies", a press release by the company states.

The rebranding process was accomplished by Brandient, one of the most important players on the Romanian branding and design market.

Talpeş did not want to disclose the costs of the rebranding process, but said that it involves a six figure sum.

The new generation of Bitdefender 2012 security products provides protection against the latest computer threats, and at the same time answers to the users" security needs.

Some of the most recent features include protection for users surfing social networks and the auto-pilot option, which automatically optimizes the processes which ensure the integrity of the system, based on the configuration and the protection requirements of the user.