Enterprise security firm Blue Coat Systems, Inc. may be returning to public equity markets in 2016 with a report that the company is considering an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

According to Bloomberg Business, the company, acquired by Bain Capital for $2.4 billion in March, is taking pitches from investment banks for an IPO that could come as soon as the second quarter of 2016.

According to the proverbial “people familiar with the matter,” no final decision has been made and Bain may choose not to proceed with an offering.

If the IPO proceeds, it will be the second time the company has been sold off in relatively short shrift, with Bain Capital having acquired it from Thoma Bravo, which iteself had taken the company private for $1.3 billion in February 2012.

Founded in 1996, 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 has 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.

Since being acquired by Bain Capital, Blue Coat has been busy, having acquired Perspecsys, Inc. in July followed by science-powered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) app/cloud security firm Elastica, Inc. for $280 million in November, with the technology from both used later to introduce a new set of cloud generation products and features to its Security Platform that was said at the time to represent a major evolution of the Secure Web Gateway, combining Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), integrated Web Application Firewall (WAF) and encrypted traffic management (SSL) for a more advanced security product.

Why?

Given Blue Coat has seemingly gone from strength to strength since being acquired by Bain Capital, the big question is why is the company now looking at an IPO so soon?

The question may actually contain the answer: Enterprise security is hot right now after an unprecedented year of high-profile hacks, ranging from enterprise through to commercial players and government, and with Blue Coat going so well, and the markets looking for quality investments, maybe Bain Capital simply decided to take advantage of both.

Conversely, though, it could also be a matter of Bain Capital seeking to exit its investment as the second great tech boom climbs toward its highest point before an inevitable crash; if even startup founders can see we are in the middle of a bubble that might be about to burst, there’s zero question that private equity firms will be seeing the same thing.

Neither Blue Coat nor Bain Capital has officially commented on the report.

Image credit: Blue Coat