Security and networking solutions provider Blue Coat Systems Inc., has been acquired by Bain Capital in a deal reported to be $2.4 billion including debt.

Based in Sunnyvale, CA, Blue Coat offers a range of products across security, WAN optimization, personal security and service provider caching. The company claims that its integrated portfolio of products have become the de facto standard for many of the Fortune Global 2000, and that it has built the largest global cloud security infrastructure, which integrates with its on-premise solutions to offer hybrid defense, anytime, anywhere.

The company said that it had experienced strong market share and revenue growth in its major product lines and currently counts 80 percent of the Fortune 500 as customers.

“Blue Coat has differentiated products for protecting enterprises from even the most sophisticated threats, and we are proud to be a foundational part of the security architecture for the world’s largest enterprises” Blue Coat’s CEO Gregory S. Clark Blue Coat said in a statement. “The world’s most trusted brands use Blue Coat, and the acquisition by Bain Capital sets us on the trajectory to further grow our portfolio, better serve our customers and help us prepare to return to the public markets.”

A pre-dotcom boom networking firm, Blue Coat went public at the height off the bubble, but unlike many firms from around that period managed to stay afloat during the tech depression days of the first half of the 2000’s. In 2012 it went private when it was acquired by Thoma Bravo for $1.3 billion.

Although not officially confirmed, The Wall Street Journal noted in its report that the acquisition may be an investment in taking Blue Coat public again, not an unsurprising suggestion given that Bain Capital isn’t known for holding full equity in companies over longer periods of time.

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