Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- McAfee Inc., the second-largest maker of security software, agreed to buy Secure Computing Corp. for about $465 million to add products for protecting corporate networks and e-mail systems.

The price per common share of $5.75 is 27 percent more than Secure's closing price Sept. 19. The deal includes about $84 million for the company's preferred stock, Santa Clara, California-based McAfee said today in a statement.

Secure, based in nearby San Jose, will add more than 22,000 customers in industries including health care, banking and government to McAfee's 100,000-plus clientele. The deal, which should be completed by the end of the fourth quarter, will be break-even or accretive to full-year 2009 earnings, McAfee said.

``This was a smart acquisition for the company at the right time,'' Daniel Ives, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., wrote today in a report. ``Secure Computing's technology is a good fit within McAfee given the company's broad distribution channel and vast installed base.''

McAfee fell $1.62, or 4.3 percent, $35.69 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Secure advanced $1.06 to $5.58 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Secure's products will add to McAfee's portfolio of firewall and data-loss protection software, David DeWalt, chief executive officer of McAfee, said on a conference call today.

``We continue to see customers looking to consolidate security vendors,'' DeWalt said. ``Whoever has the broadest suite at the lowest cost will win.''

Revenue Growth

Secure's SmartFilter identifies security threats on the Web such as spyware. Its Trusted Source system, which tracks and correlates global threats in a database for customers, will help bolster McAfee's Artemis, which also categorizes Internet threats.

McAfee, which trails Symantec Corp. in security software sales, has posted back-to-back quarters of accelerating revenue growth as more customers seek to safeguard their PCs from hackers.

Secure Computing's second-quarter net loss widened to $11 million, or 18 cents a share, from $10.9 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier. Revenue increased 7 percent to $61.7 million.

Dan Ryan, chief executive of Secure Computing, will become the head of McAfee's network security business unit.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katie Hoffmann in New York at Khoffman4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 22, 2008 16:05 EDT