Network software and security company Infoblox Inc. Has agreed to be acquired for around $1.6 billion by tech-focused private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, Coins2Day has learned. An announcement could come as early as Monday.
[Update: The deal was announced at 8:30 am.]
Vista will pay $26.50 per Infoblox (BLOX) share in cash, which represents just over a 16% premium to where shares closed trading last Friday. It also is more than 73% higher than where Infoblox stock was trading in mid-May, before a Bloomberg report that the company had received a takeover offer from Thoma Bravo, a rival private equity firm to Vista.
The Thoma Bravo approach followed activist investor Starboard Value LP acquiring a 7.1% stake in Infoblox, which had blamed flagging performance, in part, on secular decreases in enterprise IT spending. The company recently reported a $14 million net loss on $358 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2016 ― compared to a $27 million net loss on $306 million for the year earlier period. It also laid off around 12% of its workforce in June.
Morgan Stanley (MS) is said to have managed the sale process.
The deal would represent Vista Equity’s third “take-private” acquisition of 2016, following earlier deals for Cvent and Marketo.
Neither Infoblox nor Vista have yet returned requests for comment.