Qualtrics acquired by investment company for $12.5bn

The all-cash transaction will see Silver Lake and its co-investors acquire 100% of Qualtrics, include all of majority shareholder SAP’s share. SAP had bought Qualtrics in 2019.

The deal will mean Qualtrics becomes an independent, privately-held company, with shareholders earning $18.15 per share.

Qualtrics will continue to be led by chief executive officer Zig Serafin and will remain headquartered in the US cities of Provo and Seattle.

Serafin said: “We are incredibly excited to partner with the team at Silver Lake, who deeply understand our business and will help us continue to build a high performing company, invest in our innovation and expand our ecosystem to help our customers succeed.”

Ryan Smith, founder and executive chairman at Qualtrics, added: “Silver Lake’s belief in our vision and their amazing track record of helping founders and management teams speaks for itself.

“We look forward to working together and driving category-defining growth to build the next great enterprise cloud platform.”

Egon Durban, co-chief executive officer at Silver Lake, said: “We are strong believers in the amazing technology platform that Ryan, Zig and their phenomenal engineering and sales teams are building, and we’re thrilled to support the continued efficient growth of Qualtrics into a generational, highly profitable platform company by enabling further investment across all aspects of the business, including areas such as artificial intelligence and other powerful new technologies.

“This is a landmark transaction for Silver Lake, reflecting our confidence in the team and their vision. As they shape and continue to grow the next great enterprise software platform, they are the kind of leaders we have been most excited to partner with over many years of technology investing.”