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The
deal, which could be announced as soon as early this week, came
after Elliott and Vista jointly tapped the loan market to fund
their cash bid for Citrix at $104 per share. Once taking Citrix
private, Vista plans to merge it with Tibco, another data
analytics software firm it owns.
The cash bid comes lower than where Citrix stock closed at
$105.55 on Friday. Still, the price represents a premium to its
lows in December.
Citrix's products allow employees of companies to access their
network remotely. However, it failed to capitalize on the rise
of remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic because it spent
too much on its salesforce and too little on its distribution
partners, Citrix interim Chief Executive Robert Calderoni said
on the company's most recent quarterly earnings call.
Citrix, Elliott and Vista did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
Elliott, the hedge fund that has amassed a stake in Citrix, has
been looking for partners to take the company private since last
October, sources said.
While Citrix has struggled to transition to a subscription-based
business, demand for its cloud services soared during the
pandemic as companies shifted to remote working models.
Still, the company reported operating income of $84.5 million in
the third quarter, down from $128.3 million a year ago, as
higher operational expenses weighed.
Calderoni took over on an interim basis from David Henshall, who
stepped down last month, having served as Citrix CEO since 2017.
Elliott managing partner Jesse Cohn joined the Citrix board of
directors in 2015 and stepped down last year.
(Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York; editing by Diane Craft)
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