The brothers have bought control of Toronto cybersecurity company DataStealth Inc., the third operation they have owned together in their 35-plus years as business partners.
“We just like being in the grind,” said Richard, the technical expert of the duo. Michael focuses on sales, operations and finance. DataStealth and a predecessor company had built a range of applications during their three-decade history. Six years ago, DataStealth built software for itself, to protect payment card information in its systems. “People in our network found it interesting and useful, and we realized we had an opportunity, so we built a more commercial, enterprise version,” DataStealth chief executive officer Ed Leavens said.
Customers don’t have to change their existing software systems to interact with the company’s programs, a plus for large institutions that run in part on ancient technology. “You just plug it in, activate a policy, that’s it,” Mr. Leavens said. Richard loved that: “Being able to still use that code in production – but add security to it – there’s something very sexy about that,” he said.
Under the agreement, he had 15 days to accept, or to pay the same share price for their stake. He refused both options. That prompted the CEO and CIO to apply for a court order to enforce the shotgun clause. Mr. Schwartz sued.