Microsoft and Salesforce get in on Informatica deal

US big data firm taken private by consortium of investors which includes Microsoft and Salesforce

Microsoft and Salesforce have jumped in on the deal to take big data firm Informatica private, which closed yesterday.

The plans to go private were first announced in April and have now been completed in a transaction worth $5.3bn (£3.4bn). Private equity firm Permira and investment management company Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) acquired the California-headquartered company, but Microsoft and Salesforce got in on the action too.

As part of the deal, Microsoft and Salesforce Ventures have also become strategic investors. The amount of their investment has not been disclosed.

Sohaib Abbasi, chairman at Informatica, said the move to stop trading on the NASDAQ will be beneficial to the company's long-term strategy.

"The Informatica goal remains to grow into a multibillion-dollar leader in all things data. Now as a private company, with a long view measured in years, not quarters, we will have more flexibility and more time to implement our transformative innovation road map and to evolve our business model," he said.

Informatica joins the list of tech giants to move into private hands in recent years, with Dell delisting from the stock market in 2013.

As part of the acquisition, Abbasi has moved from CEO of Informatica to chairman, while Anil Chakravarthy moves from chief product officer to become the new CEO.

"It is a privilege to lead the world-class Informatica team in this promising new phase of growth as a private company," Chakravarthy said.

"Our transformative innovation road map includes four distinct billion-dollar opportunities: cloud integration, next-generation big data integration, mobile device management (MDM) solutions and data security."