[German]The next big takeover in the IT industry seems to be imminent. The US company Cisco has announced that it wants to take over Splunk. It's a really big deal, which will be done by a cash purchase. No idea how this will be seen by Splunk customers, especially if Cisco is seen rather critically there. Splunk's stock price has gone up while Cisco's has gone down.
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Splunk is a log, monitoring and reporting platform that makes data of almost any type and from almost any source accessible and usable by users. The platform searches logs, metrics and other data from applications, servers and network devices and indexes them into a searchable repository. The vendor was ranked among the market leaders among SIEM vendors by Gartner 2021.
Now Cisco has announced acquisition plans for Splunk. Cisco and Splunk appear to have reached a definitive agreement for the acquisition. Cisco intends to acquire Splunk for $157 per share in cash, representing an equity value of approximately $28 billion. Upon completion of the acquisition, Gary Steele, president and CEO of Splunk, will join Cisco's executive leadership team, reporting to chairman and CEO Chuck Robbins. The deal is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2024.
Cisco hopes the acquisition will help companies improve their "digital resilience" against attacks and security incidents. The combination of these two established leaders in AI, security, and observability should help, it hopes, increase enterprise security and resilience.
The acquisition is expected to help reduce Cisco's massive dependence on its network equipment business, according to Reuters. That business has suffered in recent years from supply chain problems and a slowdown in demand following the Corona pandemic. Splunk shares rose 23% and were $9 below the offer price when the market opened, while Cisco's stock lost nearly 5%. So the market sees a bargain for owners of Splunk stock.
After jumping nearly 40% in revenue growth last year, Splunk is struggling with an industry-wide slowdown in demand in 2023 caused by rising interest rates and stubborn inflation. But Cisco's outlook isn't viewed as favorably – its intent to buy is weighing on the company's stock price.
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