News Round-Up: Week of September 19th, 2022
Zendesk Shareholders Approve Acquisition
On September 19th, shareholders of Zendesk, a leading provider of customer service software based in San Francisco, voted in favor of their $10.2B all-cash acquisition by a consortium of private equity firms led by Hellman & Friedman and Permira . The deal values the company at $77.50 per share, equivalent to a 34% premium on Zendesk’s closing stock price on June 23rd, 2022.?
The acquisition comes at a time when Zendesk’s performance, from several angles, had been slipping. In an investor presentation released earlier this month, Zendesk board members outlined the company’s poor monthly performance metrics, while also stating that voting against the deal “carries material risk for Zendesk stockholders given Zendesk-specific performance challenges, as well as a challenging market and macroeconomic environment.”
The transaction is expected to close in Q4.?
Citrix Systems’ Acquisition by Elliott Investment Management L.P. , Vista Equity Partners Equity Finally Set to Close
On September 22nd, news emerged that Citrix 's (NASDAQ: CTXS) acquisition by leading American private equity firms Evergreen Coastal Capital, an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management, and Vista Equity is set to close on September 30th. The all-cash deal, which was announced in January, is worth $104.00 per share, valuing the transaction at a total price of $16.5B.?
Post-acquisition, Evergreen and Vista plan on merging TIBCO , an enterprise data management solutions provider, with Citrix Systems. The newly formed entity will be one of the world’s largest providers of enterprise software, serving over 400,000 customers across the globe.?
According to reports that first emerged on September 23rd, major shareholders in Aveva (LON: AVV), a global leader in industrial software, plan on rejecting Schneider Electric’s proposed ￡9.5B takeover offer. Canada’s Mawer Investment Management is reportedly among the group of shareholders that plan on voting against the deal. The offer, worth ￡31.00 per share, is viewed as opportunistic given the troubled state of Aveva’s share price in recent months.?
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Schneider already owns 60% of Aveva, which it acquired in 2017 through a reverse merger that valued the company at ￡3.0B. If the transaction is approved, Schneider reportedly plans on operating Aveva as a separate business entity.?
Early last week, reports emerged that the Federal Trade Commission requested additional information from both Amazon and iRobot. The information request, which is already the FTC’s second in connection to the companies’ proposed $1.7B merger, is a sign that the deal will likely face further rounds of scrutiny from antitrust regulators.?
Throughout the past few weeks, several organizations have petitioned the FTC to take a closer look at the inner workings of the proposed deal. Among their concerns were Amazon’s increasing monopoly on the digital economy, as well as the potential for anti-competitive behavior on the part of the eCommerce giant post-acquisition.?
Amazon has faced a slew of antitrust investigations in recent years. One of its more recent acquisitions, the proposed $3.9B takeover of primary healthcare clinic chain One Medical , is also facing an investigation from the FTC.?
BlackRock LTPC Acquires Share in Paradigm Oral Health
BlackRock Long Term Private Capital, a private equity firm associated with BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), a leading asset management firm with nearly $10T of assets under management, recently announced that they had reached an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Paradigm Oral Health . The company, which is headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, provides dental and oral surgery services at over 75 facilities throughout the US.?
The move comes amid significant interest in the dental industry from private equity. In Canada alone, several private equity-backed companies, including 123Dental, have gained significant market share in recent years through a series of acquisitions aimed at rolling up the industry.