Cloud computing and virtualization company Citrix to be acquired for $16.5B

Citrix, a cloud computing and virtualization company used by companies including Microsoft, Google, and SAP, has revealed plans to be acquired by affiliates of global investment firm Vista Equity Partners, and an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management called Evergreen Coast Capital Corporation.

The all-cash deal is valued at $16.5 billion, representing a near 30 percent premium on Citrix’s market capitalization before rumors of a possible deal first started to emerge last month.

Founded in 1989, Citrix was originally known for its Windows-based remote access products, but over the past few decades the company has endeavored to move with the times, and now offers myriad technologies spanning cloud computing, servers, networking, and more. One of its flagship products is Citrix Workspace, a virtualization platform that helps enterprises deploy apps and desktops remotely, including securing all the devices that connect to a network.

Put simply, Citrix Workspace is well-positioned to flourish in a world that has had to rapidly embrace remote and hybrid working.

“Over the past three decades, Citrix has established itself as the clear leader in secure hybrid work,” Citrix’s interim CEO and president Bob Calderoni said in a statement.

Remote workspace

Workspace has been a core focus for Citrix as it evolves in an increasingly cloud-first world. Last year, Citrix doled out more than $2 billion for project management platform Wrike, so that Citrix could offer cloud-based collaborative work management smarts to its thousands of enterprise customers. This has also led Vista and Evergreen to Citrix’s door with wallets wide open.

Vista and Evergreen have indicated that they plan to combine Citrix with Tibco Software, a business intelligence and enterprise data management company that Vista acquired back in 2014, to create what they call a “global digital workspace and data analytics leader.”

“Together with Tibco, we will be able to operate with greater scale and provide a larger customer base with a broader range of solutions to accelerate their digital transformations and enable them to deliver the future of hybrid work,” Calderoni said.

But perhaps more important than that, Citrix will no longer be a publicly-traded company, which could afford it greater agility as it recalibrates for the future of work.

“As a private company, we will have increased financial and strategic flexibility to invest in high-growth opportunities, such as DaaS (desktop-as-service), and accelerate its ongoing cloud transition,” Calderoni added.

The deal — should it receive shareholder and regulatory approval — is expected to close by the middle of 2022.