Citrix promises to ‘deliver the future of hybrid work’ with TIBCO
Virtualization pioneer Citrix Systems and enterprise data management powerhouse TIBCO Software will combine under the terms of a new deal announced Tuesday. Citrix announced Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. will acquire it in an all-cash transaction valued at $16.5 billion.
The terms of the acquisition were unanimously approved by Citrix’s voting board of directors. Under the terms of the deal, Citrix shareholders will receive $104.00 in cash per share. The businesses expect to close the deal mid-year.
Citrix separately reported fourth quarter and FY2021 financial results for the quarter and year that ended on December 31, 2021. The company reported $851 million in revenue, a 5% year-over-year improvement. It ended its fiscal year with $3.22 billion in revenue, a 1% decrease over 2020. Citrix did not hold a call to discuss the results as a result of the recently-announced transaction.
It’s almost a cliché: Rumors that Citrix was for sale or shopping itself around have repeated every few years. Almost since the company was created in 1989, really. Focus sharpened in 2021 following a Bloomberg report. The company was working with advisors to sell itself, said the article. CEO David Henshall left the following month. The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Vista and Evergreen owner Elliot Management Corp. were in negotiations to buy Citrix for $13 billion.
Interim CEO discusses Desktop as a Service opportunity
Citrix’s products help employees remotely access company software and services from any device. TIBCO makes enterprise data management, integration and analytics software. Citrix and TIBCO will be able to better address hybrid work, said Bob Calderoni in a statement. Calderoni is chair of the Citrix Board of Directors and interim chief executive officer and president.
“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,” said Calderoni.
Calderoni says the transaction will help Citrix capitalize on emerging market opportunities. He pointed specifically to Desktop as a Service (DaaS). DaaS, another permutation of anything as a service, is a small but fast-growing segment of public cloud services, according to market research firm Gartner.
Gartner’s most recent global public cloud spending forecast estimates the total Desktop as a Service (DaaS) market spend for 2022 at $2.667 billion, up 67% over 2021. The report points to enterprise cloud workload migration and new hybrid workforce demands to explain DaaS’s growth.
DaaS provides users with remote desktop virtualization using a cloud-native platform. Citrix already provides solutions for the emerging DaaS market. Those work alongside the traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) systems which have comprised Citrix’s core product offerings for decades.
