OpenText buys Carbonite for $1.42bn

OpenText is acquiring the cloud backup and storage service vendor Carbonite for $1.42bn.

Carbonite said in a statement that it had received a number of offers and the OpenText deal was “the best way to maximise shareholder value”.

The price is $23/share, a 78 per cent premium to Carbonite’s stock price on September 5. OpenText will cover the acquisition with cash and a revolving credit facility.

OpenText CEO Mark Barrenechea said in a canned quote: “This acquisition will further strengthen OpenText as a leader in cloud platforms, complete endpoint security and protection, and will open a new route to connect with customers, through Carbonite’s marquee SMB/prosumer channel and products.” 

Carbonite today announced third quarter results, delivering revenues of $125.6m, up 62 per cent y/y. This was boosted by the $618.5m acquisition of cybersecurity business Webroot in February 2019.

Carbonite quarterly revenue and profit/loss history.

The company lost $14m, compared to $0.6m income a year ago. Debt interest rose from $2.9m to $10.8m – Carbonite took out a $550m term loan in March to finance the Webroot acquisition.

OpenText

OpenText, headquartered in Ontario, sells enterprise information management software. It is acquisitive, buying eDiscovery vendor Catalyst Repository Systems in January for $75m and Liaison Technologies for $130m in October 2018.

It bought file sync and share firm Hightail in February 2018 and Guidance Software and Covisint in 2017. It acquired Documentum, the Dell EMC content management business, in September 2016 and some HP customer communication assets earlier that year.