Cloud-computing firm
Citrix Programs Inc.
CTXS 4.81%
is near a deal to be taken non-public, persevering with a spate of huge leveraged buyouts.
Elliott Administration Corp.’s private-equity arm, Evergreen Coast Capital, and Vista Fairness Companions are close to an settlement to pay $104 a share, or roughly $13 billion, for the software program firm, in accordance with folks aware of the matter.
The deal may very well be introduced Monday, the folks mentioned.
A deal isn’t assured because the talks might nonetheless crumble or the announcement may very well be delayed.
Ought to it go ahead, the takeover could be the most important leveraged buyout in current months, ending the lull that adopted a flurry of them in 2021. With rates of interest at historic lows, private-equity corporations have amassed billions of {dollars} of money from traders that they need to put to work to start incomes charges on it.
Citrix makes software program that permits customers to nearly entry desktops in addition to different cloud-computing capabilities.
Its shares closed Friday at round $105.55, having already jumped on hypothesis of a deal over the previous few months. Bloomberg reported Jan. 14 that Elliott and Vista had been in superior talks to purchase Citrix.
Citrix, like many legacy software program corporations, has had a rocky transition to a subscription-based mannequin for its core virtual-desktop providers.
Citrix’s
David Henshall
in October stepped down as president and chief govt and in addition left as a director together with one other board member, a transfer that diminished the board’s dimension to eight members. The corporate tapped chairman
Bob Calderoni
as interim CEO.
Citrix has benefited because the pandemic stokes demand for remote-work providers, a development that seems poised to proceed.
Nonetheless, Citrix’s modest dimension in contrast with that of friends reminiscent of
VMware Inc.
and spotty outcomes through the years have made it the topic of takeover hypothesis. Certainly, it has drawn the eye of private-equity corporations and business gamers prior to now, although no deal was struck.
Elliott has an extended historical past with Citrix. It holds a greater than 10% stake value over $1 billion and had been pushing it to take steps to spice up its share value, The Wall Avenue Journal reported in September.
Elliott has gone on to purchase different corporations it agitated at, together with health-data firm Athenahealth Inc., which it agreed to promote final yr.
The funding agency took a stake in Citrix in 2015 and held a seat on its board till final spring.
Elliott, whereas best-known for its activist investments, has been increasing its private-equity observe. Exterior of Evergreen, which focuses on know-how investments and can be an proprietor of software program firm LogMeIn Inc., Elliott owns different corporations together with bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc.
Based mostly in Austin, Texas, Vista is a pioneer in software program investing and manages greater than $86 billion in belongings. Its chief govt,
Robert Smith,
based Vista in 2000.
Citrix is predicted to be mixed with Tibco, a software program firm Vista already owns, among the folks mentioned.
—Miriam Gottfried contributed to this text.
Write to Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com
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