Quest Software going private

Just a couple of days ago, Quest Software Inc, got an offer from Insight Venture partners. The offer of USD$23 per share will bring the offer close to USD$2 billion, and the company will be taken private.

This is the second big-name taken off and going private. The first one being BlueCoat after it has agreed to be take private for a price of USD$1.3 billion by Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm.

Quest Software is the maker of the famous Oracle performance analyzer, Toad and also has acquired smaller companies like Bakbone and Vizioncore in the past, but this around it has become the acquisition target.

This brings a very interesting fact, that, more and more public companies are going private. Here in home ground, the largest mobile carrier, Maxis, went private a few years ago.

Why? Typically most companies go private when the shareholders think that the stock market does not give the company share the right value. The market perhaps has stagnated and not growing. However, BlueCoat and Quest Software are not in a stagnant market. Security, application acceleration, data protection and data analytics are big market in the cusp of exploding growth. Then why are these companies going private?

Here are a few possible reasons (my take):

  1. With the buy-out, these companies can be free from the encumbrances that come with being a public company. Some of them include lengthy approvals from shareholders, board of directors and regulators, which could slow the decision-making process
  2. These new owners are looking at plans to expand into markets that they can’t get to globally without being scrutinized by the regulators and certain shareholders. Going private mean that they could offer their services across the globe in the cloud space, with lesser restrictions and prohibitions.
  3. They want to be really aggressive and being public just bogs them down.
  4. The new owners plan to “shoeshine” these lackluster companies and hoping to sell them out again to get a huge profit.

Thoma Bravo, for example, already has several companies in its security portfolio – Entrust, Hyland Software, SonicWall and TripWire and the BlueCoat acquisition just adds more to its “great view of security“. Thoma Bravo, as described, is a technology investment firm specializing in revamping and growing established companies.

Insight Venture Partners (IVP), too, is in the business of private equity and venture capital, and has invested in companies such as Solarwinds, Acronis and DataCore.

This Quest Software acquisition could IVP’s biggest yet, but the question remains. Why?

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About cfheoh

I am a technology blogger with 30 years of IT experience. I write heavily on technologies related to storage networking and data management because those are my areas of interest and expertise. I introduce technologies with the objectives to get readers to know the facts and use that knowledge to cut through the marketing hypes, FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and other fancy stuff. Only then, there will be progress. I am involved in SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association) and between 2013-2015, I was SNIA South Asia & SNIA Malaysia non-voting representation to SNIA Technical Council. I currently employed at iXsystems as their General Manager for Asia Pacific Japan.

6 Responses to Quest Software going private

  1. Pingback: Quest Software going private « Storage Gaga

  2. wake up lan says:

    Easy, lastlustre integration of Provision, Scriptlogic, Vizioncore, Bakbone etc… Take private and sell of the peripherals to Oracle, VMware, MSFT, streamline as management and excution has been poor in recent years, Doug Garn gone and with Vinnie back and his long terma relationship with Insight it is a massive way for some to make a killing financially without having to bend to investors? Rocket science?

    • cfheoh says:

      Hi wake up lan

      Thanks for sharing your valuable insights. Mind sharing who Doug Darn and Vinnie are. Obviously you are the man with the inside vibes of this company.

      Thank you
      /Chin-Fah

  3. Michael says:

    The truth about Quest Software revealed in the letter sent from Quest employee to CEO:
    https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzlJizLqiOloTWpGNGNtVmFXZ2M
    http://www.filefactory.com/file/atmq3en08qp/n/Letter_to_CEO.msg

    • cfheoh says:

      Hi Michael

      Thanks for sharing. It is interesting to know about this, and I am about to write something about the Dell acquisition of Quest.

      Since you are an unlikely source of this valuable information, would you mind sharing with me your background and your position in the ecosystem of Quest? This would allow me to know you better and also strengthen the authenticity of your information.

      Appreciate your reply.

      Thank you
      /Chin-Fah

  4. Pingback: Did Dell bought a dud? | Storage Gaga

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