Informatica goes private in $5.3 billion buyout deal. Microsoft, Salesforce join in as investors

Microsoft and Salesforce.com have joined private-equity investors Permira funds and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in a $5.3 billion buyout deal of data integration software company Informatica Corp. However, the sizes of the stakes bought by Microsoft and Salesforce were not disclosed. [caption id=“attachment_1374603” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] AP[/caption] With this, Informatica – which claims to have 5,800 enterprise customers – goes private 16 years after going public at the height of the dotcom bubble. The company has now delisted itself from NASDAQ. Anil Chakravarthy, chief product officer, will now serve as the acting chief executive officer of the company. While, Sohaib Abbasi, chairman and former chief executive officer, will continue to serve as chairman of Informatica. Bruce Chizen, former chief executive officer of Adobe, has joined Informatica as a board member and as a special advisor to Informatica. “The Informatica goal remains to grow into a multi-billion 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 roadmap and to evolve our business model,” said Sohaib Abbasi, chairman, Informatica. “It is a privilege to lead the world-class Informatica team in this promising new phase of growth as a private company,” said Anil Chakravarthy, acting chief executive officer, Informatica. “Our transformative innovation roadmap includes four distinct billion-dollar opportunities: cloud integration, next generation big data integration, MDM solutions and data security. And living our customer-first culture, we will evolve our business model to match customers’ preferences for pay-for-use subscription offerings.”