Pedestrians walk past the entrance to Zendesk headquarters in San Francisco.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Zendesk soared early Friday after confirming a report that it would be acquired by a group that includes Hellman & Friedman and Permira.
Zendesk (ticker: ZEN) announced Friday it would be bought for $77.50 a share in cash, or $10.2 billion. The stock rose 29% to $74.76. Prior to the official announcement the stock had risen more than 50%.
The price represents a premium of about 34% over its closing price on Thursday., Zendesk has a market cap of more than $7 billion.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the provider of cloud-based customer-service software was in takeover talks with a group of buyout firms.
Zendesk had said earlier this month that it planned to continue on as an independent public company after not finding a buyer.
The Journal reported last week that Zendesk was in talks with activist investor Jana Partners that could include the departure of the company’s chief executive. The Journal said it wasn’t certain where those talks stood in light of the fresh buyout deal.
Patrick Walravens, analyst at JMP Securities, said Zendesk “represents an attractive acquisition candidate because it is a platform, it is global, it is multi-product, and it is 100% cloud.”
Walravens maintained a Market Outperform rating and $193 price target on Zendesk shares.
Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]
