SolarWinds, a secure observability and IT management vendor, is set to be acquired by San Francisco-based private equity firm Turn/River Capital in an all-cash transaction valued at $4.4 billion. The deal, which is set at $18.50 per share, represents a 35 percent premium over the average closing price of SolarWinds stock over the past 90 days.
The acquisition, unanimously approved by SolarWinds’ board of directors, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025 pending regulatory approvals and closing conditions. Once the transaction is finalized, SolarWinds will transition to a privately held company and its stock will no longer be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
“We have built a great track record of helping customers accelerate business transformations through simple, powerful, secure solutions designed for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. We now look forward to partnering with Turn/River to deliver operational resilience solutions for our customers on our SolarWinds Platform,” Sudhakar Ramakrishna, SolarWinds president and CEO, said in a statement. “This successful transaction is a testament to our employees’ outstanding work and dedication to customer success. We are confident that Turn/River’s expertise will help us continue to innovate and deliver even greater value for our customers and stakeholders.”
CRN has reached out to SolarWinds for additional comment.
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The deal comes as Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds continues to expand its portfolio of observability, monitoring and service desk solutions.
“SolarWinds is a global leader in software that helps businesses securely manage and optimize their IT systems, networks and infrastructure,” Dominic Ang, founder and managing partner of Turn/River Capital, said in a statement. “Their commitment to customer success and their proven track record of innovation have made them an ideal partner for us. We are excited to leverage our team’s expertise in software operations and growth to accelerate SolarWinds’ development and further its mission.”
In 2020, the software vendor was hit with a targeted supply chain attack on its Orion network monitoring platform. The breach, which had a global impact, was suspected to be carried out by Russian state-backed hackers who gained unauthorized access to U.S. government agencies, critical infrastructure and private sector organizations.
Between March and June 2020, malicious code was injected into Orion, allowing hackers thought to be associated with Russian intelligence agency APT29 to breach systems at Microsoft, FireEye and several U.S. government departments, including Defense, State, Treasury, Homeland Security and Commerce.
In response, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) directed all federal civilian agencies to shut down SolarWinds Orion products until all compromised accounts and identified persistent threats were eliminated.
The pending acquisition means that SolarWinds will not hold its previously scheduled conference call to discuss its fourth-quarter and full-year financial results for 2024, originally set for Feb. 11. The company expects to release its financial results for the period around Feb. 14.