SUSE to be acquired, taken private (UPDATED)
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SUSE to be acquired, taken private
SUSE's long story of corporate ownership is gaining a new chapter; the company has announced that it's majority shareholder (Marcel LUX III SARL) will acquiring the remaining shares, and will take the company private and off of the stock exchange. ""SUSE’s Management Board and Supervisory Board support the strategic opportunity from delisting of the company as it will allow SUSE to focus fully on its operational priorities and execution of its long-term strategy.""
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SUSE To Go Private
SUSE has gone through more than its fair share of corporate restructuring, and here comes another one.
UPDATE
Original and more:
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EQT Private Equity Announces Voluntary Public Purchase Offer and Intention to Delist SUSE | SUSE
SUSE®, the company behind SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), Rancher and NeuVector and a global leader in enterprise open source solutions, is announcing that its majority shareholder Marcel LUX III SARL (Marcel) intends to take the company private by delisting it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange via a merger into an unlisted Luxembourg entity in the legal form of an S.A.
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iTWire - SUSE to go private again, become unlisted Luxembourg entity
German open source vendor SUSE has announced that its majority shareholder Marcel intends to take the company private by delisting it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange through a merger into an unlisted Luxembourg entity.
In a statement released on Thursday, the company said Marcel was a holding company controlled by fund entities that comprised EQT Private Equity which acquired SUSE in 2019.
These, in turn, were managed and legally controlled by affiliates of EQT with its registered seat in Stockholm, Sweden. Marcel holds about 79% of the shares in SUSE.
The statement said EQT intended to start a voluntary public purchase offer to other shareholders of SUSE to buy their shares prior to the delisting. The process is expected to be completed by October.
SUSE, the company behind the oldest Linux distribution, was first bought by Novell in 2003. It was then acquired by Attachmate in 2010 and taken private, when the company bought Novell.
The Register:
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SUSE to flip back into private ownership after just two-and-a-bit years
Linux-loving software house SUSE is to quit the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and become a private company again, just two years after it listed in 2021.
On Wednesday the developer announced that its majority shareholder, an entity called Marcel LUX III SARL, intends to take it private by delisting it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and merging it with an unlisted Luxembourg entity.
Marcel is an entity controlled by EQT Private Equity, a Swedish investment firm, which acquired it from MicroFocus in 2018.
Techcrunch:
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SUSE goes private again
SUSE, the German Linux vendor and acquirer of enterprise tools like Rancher and NeuVector, has had its fair share of owners since it was founded in 1992. There was Novell, which acquired it in 2003. Then Novell itself was acquired by The Attachmate Group in 2011. Then Attachmate and Micro Focus merged in 2014, only to sell off SUSE to private equity firm EQT Partners in 2018, which then took it public with an IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in the heady days of summer 2021. And now, EQT Partners is taking SUSE private once again.
One more:
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SUSE to be taken private by its majority shareholder
An investment firm plans to take SUSE SA private to advance the open-source software maker’s long-term growth strategy. SUSE announced the plan on Thursday. The proposed deal values the company at about €2.6 billion, significantly higher than its market capitalization before the transaction’s announcement. Germany-based SUSE develops a popular Linux distribution of the same name.
Slashdot and Red Hat-connected media:
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SUSE To Flip Back Into Private Ownership
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Linux developer SUSE, which is involved in Red Hat fight, moves to go private | WRAL TechWire
One of the companies fighting with Red Hat over changes affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is going private.
SUSE is seeking to delist from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, reports ITPro.com.
Such a move “will allow SUSE to focus fully on its operational priorities and execution of its long-term strategy,” SUSE says, according to the report.
“The company has also waded into the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) furor, first with plans to invest over $10 million into a fork of RHEL and, most recently, by forming the Open Enterprise Linux Association (OpenELA) with Oracle and CIQ,” ITPro adds.
Linux Magazine:
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SUSE is Going Private (Again)
Marcel holds 79% of the SUSE shares, and EQT Private Equity has announced that it will launch a voluntary public purchase offer to the remaining shareholders prior to the delisting. The offering price for those shares is EUR 16.00.
Both the SUSE Management and Supervisory boards support this move as it will allow the company to shift its focus to its operation priorities and long-term strategies.
SUSE's CEO, Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, said of the move, “I believe in the strategic opportunity of taking the company private – it gives us the right setting to grow the business and deliver on our strategy with the new leadership team in place.” He continued, “EQT Private Equity’s and SUSE’s partnership in a private setting has been fruitful before and we are excited about the long-term potential of the company and our continued collaboration”.