Founded in 2008 by a group of engineers from Google, Facebook, Oracle, and Yahoo, Cloudera was one of the early players in the open-source framework Hadoop. Through it, large amounts of data are processed quickly. Cloudera, catering to industries including finance, healthcare, and government agencies, saw an uptick in demand during the pandemic. Behemoths like Amazon.com, Alphabet, and Microsoft have invested in software products that are Cloudera’s speciality.
Cloudera’s largest shareholder is Carl Icahn, an activist investor who has explored the company’s potential sale since mid-2020. Icahn’s desire finally came true earlier today. Private equity firms KKR and Clayton Dubilier & Rice will take Cloudera private at a valuation of approx. $4.7 billion. According to Cloudera’s SEC filing, it received a $16 per share cash offer, representing a premium of over 24% over the last closing price on Friday.
The deal is expected to be closed in the second half of the year and includes a 30-day “go-shop” period during which Cloudera can explore alternative offers.
After the news hit the wires, Cloudera stock price surged more than 24% in pre-market trading.
Sources: bloomberg.com, cnbc.com