Cloudera bought by private equity firms in $5.3bn deal

Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and KKR have snapped up the US data company

US cloud data company Cloudera has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) and KKR for $5.3bn (€4.3bn).

The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2021 and will see Jeff Hawn, CD&R operating partner, serve as chairman of the company.

Cloudera claims the transaction will deliver "substantial value" to its shareholders, who will receive $16.00 in cash per share, representing a 24 per cent premium to the closing price as of May 28, 2021 and a 30 per cent premium to the 30-day volume weighted average share price.

"This transaction provides substantial and certain value to our shareholders while also accelerating Cloudera's long-term path to hybrid cloud leadership for analytics that span the complete data lifecycle - from the Edge to AI," said Cloudera CEO, Rob Bearden.

"We believe that as a private company with the expertise and support of experienced investors such as CD&R and KKR, Cloudera will have the resources and flexibility to drive product-led growth and expand our addressable market opportunity."

The California-HQ company posted strong results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2022.

Revenues were up seven per cent to $224.3m while gross profit jumped 16 per cent to $181m.

Hawn added: "The company has made significant progress establishing the Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) as a leader in hybrid and multi-cloud analytics, and we believe that our experience and capabilities can offer valuable support to accelerate expansion into new products and markets."