The technology mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market appears to be back in full force after large private equity firms revealed two big deals for leading cybersecurity firms.
The first, and largest of the two deals, came from US PE giant Thoma Bravo, which bought SailPoint, which provides companies with tools for employees to access secure remote work tools.
The deal, which takes SailPoint private, values the company at $6.900 billion, a premium over SailPoint's closing price. The Texas-based company saw its shares soar after the Financial Times reported on the deal.
Offers, offers, offers
The second deal saw PE giant KKR buy Barracuda Networks, this time from Thoma Bravo in a deal that values Barracuda at around €4bn.
Barracuda offers SaaS tools to help businesses manage their cybersecurity needs, which is becoming increasingly important in the modern IT landscape.
Both mergers and acquisitions are huge, but that wasn't even all the activity in the space this week.
Earlier this week, Kaseya acquired Datto, which offers cloud backup tools for small and medium-sized businesses, for $6200 billion in cash, funded by Insight Partners and other investment firms.
And in early March, Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire Anaplan, which makes cloud-based business planning software, for a staggering €10.7 billion.
TV ratings firm Nielsen was also recently acquired by private equity firms for around €16bn and software company Citrix was taken private by Elliott Management for €16.5bn.
a crazy world
All of these deals are pretty extraordinary and are largely due to the fact that private equity firms have raised huge amounts of money and tech company valuations have plummeted post-pandemic.
Thoma Bravo, for example, raised €35 billion for purchases by the end of 2021, money that is currently being deployed to good effect.