Radnor-based QLIK accepts Thoma Bravo's $3 billion, $28.50 per share offer (Update)

Tom Paine

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This morning QLIK accepted PE firm Thoma Bravo's offer of $3 Billion, or $30.50 per share. Headquarters will remain in Radnor.

The price is a 40 percent premium to the company’s "unaffected 10-day average stock price prior to March 3." That's the date that Elliot Management announced it had bought 8.9% of QLIK shares. Elliot's purchase followed a short-term dip brought on by a dissapointing earnings report and a critical article in Barron's.

My guess is potential investors who looked at QLIK saw a mixture of good and bad news coming down, and were not willing to pay a premium over the price range shares settled in after Elliot's stake was announced.

QlIK had $370 million in cash & equivalents as 3/31.

QLIK's headcount is widely dispersed geographically, and less than 10% of its roughly 2500 employees work out of Radnor.

Another issue is what happens to CEO Lars Björk. He has had more pluses than minuses in leading QLIK to get to this point, but has been slow to respond to some key changes (dataviz, big data) in the market. My guess is he will be gone, one way or another.






Reuters is reporting that Thoma Bravo is prepared to make an offer to Qlik Technologies, perhaps as soon as today.

Thoma Bravo will make a binding offer of as much as $2.8 billion, or $28 to $30 per share, the report says. That price is really not higher than Qlik's trading range either before or after Paul Singer's Elliot Management Corp bought roughly a 10% stake in the Radnor-based business intelligence software vendor, with the exception of s brief dip in February. Elliot Management's buy was reported in early March. QLIK was trading as high as $32 today.

There are people who believe Qlik's technology is superior to Tableau's or that of most other BI or DataVis companies. But if the Reuters report is accurate, perhaps no one is willing to step forward and pay a premium.

Based out of San Francisco and Chicago, Thoma Bravo is not a stranger to the Philadelphia area.Its portfolio includes iPipeline of Exton and Sparta Systems of Hamilton, NJ. I consider it to be one of smartest buyout firms in the software/SaaS space.


Denn Howlett has a somwhat skeptical view of QlikTech and the auction process.

Update: Qlik Will Likely Reject P.E. Bid As Too Low, Say CLSA, Brean (Barron' Tech Trader Daily)