SUSE surged as much as 60% after buyout firm EQT said it will take the German software developer private.
EQT, which holds roughly 79% of SUSE, said late on Thursday it will pay €16/share for the stock it doesn’t already own. SUSE has agreed to support the offer, which represents a 67% premium to its last closing price and values the company at €2.7-billion.
SUSE shares were trading 59% higher at 9.11am in Frankfurt on Friday, lifting its market value to more than €2.6-billion.
The take-private comes little more than a year after an attempted sale to technology-focused investor Thoma Bravo failed. EQT took SUSE public in 2021 but had seen the company’s shares fall by more than two-thirds since the initial public offering.
Founded in 1992, SUSE built a version of the Linux operating system that large companies use to run their servers. It also sells tools for automating cloud software deployment and hosting SAP applications.
EQT has been expanding SUSE through acquisitions since first investing in 2019. The company agreed in 2020 to buy Rancher Labs to gain tools used for managing cloud infrastructure. In 2021, SUSE reached a deal to buy NeuVector, a container security firm serving financial services and government clients. — Eyk Henning, (c) 2023 Bloomberg LP
