Retail and property group, Sonae is creating a European cybersecurity group.
Sonae, best known for its Continente supermarket chain, has merged two Spanish cybersecurity companies in a move to focus on the cyber security market.
The merger paves the way for the "creation of a European cybersecurity leader" in the Iberian market with 400 "highly specialised" workers, read the company’s press release.
The transaction is being carried out by Sonae IM, the Sonae subsidiary which merges S21Sec, based in Barcelona with Nextel, which has "30 years of experience" and provides auditing, consulting and integration of computer security.
The information came from Sonae IM in press release, in which the company led by Cláudia Azevedo indicated that this is "a decisive step" in the creation of a leading company in this segment at a European level.
In November 2017, the company bought into US cybersecurity company Artic Wolf, followed by an investment in Germany's Secucloud.
Sonae believes that this merger has the potential to “create value" with emphasis on "expanding the customer base by sector” etc etc, - or presumably it wouldn’t have bothered.
What many in the Algarve want to know, is why Sonae's directors continue with their plans to open a Continente supermarket at the Alagoas Brancas site in Lagoa, a wetland of immeasurable value to wildlife.
The company states on its website, “how we conduct ourselves in life and in business is what bonds us and makes us special, in any business or geographic area.”
The group is run by Cláudia Azevedo, the daughter of Sonae’s driving force, Belmiro Azevedo who died last November. Sonae’s indifference to the Lagoa wetland site indeed has made the company “special” with its local image in Lagoa possibly at an all time low and its legacy one of destruction rather than responsible growth.
