IBM (NYSE: IBM) will acquire HashiCorp Inc. (NASDAQ: HCP), a San Francisco, CA-based multi-cloud infrastructure automation company, for $35 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of $6.4 billion.
The boards of directors of IBM and HashiCorp have both approved the transaction. The acquisition is subject to approval by HashiCorp shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
HashiCorp’s suite of products provides enterprises with extensive Infrastructure Lifecycle Management and Security Lifecycle Management capabilities to enable organizations to automate their hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
The company’s capabilities enable enterprises to use automation to deliver lifecycle management for infrastructure and security, providing a system of record for the critical workflows needed for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
HashiCorp boasts a roster of more than 4,400 clients, including Bloomberg, Comcast, Deutsche Bank, GitHub, J.P Morgan Chase, Starbucks and Vodafone. Their community products across infrastructure and security include:
- Terraform – provides organizations with a single workflow to provision their cloud, private datacenter, and SaaS infrastructure and continuously manage infrastructure throughout its lifecycle
- Vault – provides organizations with identity-based security to automatically authenticate and authorize access to secrets and other sensitive data
- Additional products – Boundary for secure remote access; Consul for service-based networking; Nomad for workload orchestration; Packer for building and managing images as code; and Waypoint internal developer platform
The deal creates a comprehensive end-to-end hybrid cloud platform built for AI-driven complexity. Upon close, HashiCorp is expected to drive significant synergies for IBM, including across multiple strategic growth areas like Red Hat, watsonx, data security, IT automation and Consulting. The two companies also anticipate an acceleration of HashiCorp’s growth initiatives by leveraging IBM’s go-to-market strategy, scale, and reach, operating in more than 175 countries across the globe. The acquisition will create the opportunity to deliver more comprehensive hybrid and multi-cloud offerings to enterprise clients. HashiCorp’s offerings, combined with IBM and Red Hat, will give clients a platform to automate the deployment and orchestration of workloads across evolving infrastructure including hyperscale cloud service providers, private clouds and on-prem environments. The transaction will accelerate IBM’s growth profile over time driven by go-to-market and product synergies. This growth combined with operating efficiencies, is expected to achieve substantial near-term margin expansion for the acquired business. It is anticipated that the transaction will be accretive to Adjusted EBITDA within the first full year, post close, and free cash flow in year two.
Commenting on the deal, Armon Dadgar, HashiCorp co-founder and chief technology officer, said: “I’m incredibly excited by today’s news and to be joining IBM to accelerate HashiCorp’s mission and expand access to our products to an even broader set of developers and enterprises.”
Dave McJannet, HashiCorp chief executive officer, added: “Today is an exciting day for our dedicated teams across the world as well as the developer communities we serve. IBM’s leadership in hybrid cloud along with its rich history of innovation, make it the ideal home for HashiCorp as we enter the next phase of our growth journey. I’m proud of the work we’ve done as a standalone company, I am excited to be able to help our customers further, and I look forward to the future of HashiCorp as part of IBM.”
FinSMEs
29/04/2024