Silver Lake is in talks to acquire Workday. The deal would be one of the largest software acquisitions ever. Workday’s stock surged nearly 18 percent following the news. As a result, its market capitalization has risen to about $51 billion.
The talks have been ongoing for several months, according to Reuters, citing sources. It remains uncertain whether a deal will actually be finalized. Neither party has commented on the news.
Before the news broke, Workday was valued at about $43 billion on the stock market. The stock closed at $206.45 on Thursday. This year, however, the stock price has been under pressure, falling by about 15 percent. Compared with its 2024 peak, the stock is still down more than 40 percent.
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This stock performance is entirely due to investor doubts about the sustainability of traditional enterprise software. For the same reason, private-equity firms have remained conspicuously on the sidelines of major software acquisitions this year. The future growth and value of these types of companies are more difficult to estimate.
In January, Hg Capital acquired financial software maker OneStream for approximately $6.4 billion, one of the larger deals of the year. Thoma Bravo topped that by putting $12.3 billion on the table for payroll specialist Dayforce. An acquisition of Workday would be many times larger.
Silver Lake has a long track record in technology. The firm has previously invested in Dell Technologies, VMware, and Qualtrics. Last year, together with the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners, it took game developer Electronic Arts private for approximately $55 billion. Additional investors could also come on board this time to finalize the financing.
Workday was founded in 2005 by former PeopleSoft executives Aneel Bhusri and David Duffield and went public in 2012. The company provides cloud services for HR, payroll, finance, and planning to more than 11,500 customers, including Netflix, U.S. Bank, and Thomson Reuters. Bhusri returned as CEO in February, succeeding Carl Eschenbach.
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