Multinational network security services and solutions vendor Fortinet has announced its closure of the acquisition of Meru Networks, a global provider of enterprise intelligent Wi-Fi networking.

In a statement Fortinet says the acquisition expands its secure wireless and enterprise growth focus, will broaden its solutions portfolio and offer more opportunity to address the $5 billion global enterprise Wi-Fi market.

The deal is expected to reinforce Fortinet's supply to environments that require high capacity load and a high-density of wireless users, including enterprise, education, healthcare and hospitality.

Ken Xie, founder, chairman and CEO of Fortinet, is quoted as saying, "To truly protect against all possible attack vectors, we are continuing to expand our market-leading end-to-end security platform to provide customers with the visibility and continuous threat protection they need – from the data centre, to the cloud to the end-point. We expect the acquisition of Meru to help us deliver new solutions and services to help enterprises of all sizes deploy, manage, and secure wired and wireless networks in a mobile era."

Immediate implications of the acquisition include a broader offering for channel partners and Meru employees will officially join Fortinet.

According to Fortinet it is paying $1.63 per Meru share in cash, an equity value of approximately $44 million for the transaction.

"Fortinet first completed the tender offer for all outstanding shares of Meru by accepting for payment all such shares validly tendered and not properly withdrawn as of the expiration time of the tender offer, which represented approximately 60.18% of Meru's outstanding shares. Subsequently, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fortinet merged with and into Meru, resulting in Meru becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Fortinet," reads the company's statement.

Perry Hutton, Fortinet Africa regional director, has confirmed that a fresh enterprise secure wireless offering for the Africa market will be rolled out in the next two quarters.

Fortinet's footprint in Africa is split across the continent, with designated teams responsible for specific countries spread across English-speaking, Francophone and SADC regions.

Countries covered include Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia and Liberia, Cairo, Nairobi, Tanzania and Angola, as well as all countries in the South.