Elias Stein
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Enterprise-software stocks have been beleaguered of late. But depressed valuations lure bargain-conscious private-equity buyers. On Wednesday,
Ping Identity
,
which sells identity-security software, announced a deal to be acquired by Thoma Bravo for $28.50 a share, or $2.8 billion. Ping went public at $15 a share in September 2019 and sold for an eye-popping 63% premium to Tuesday’s closing price.
Thoma Bravo has been a busy shopper. In June, the firm bought Anaplan for $10.4 billion in cash; in May, it paid $2.6 billion for payments-tech company Bottomline Technologies; and in April, it agreed to buy
SailPoint Technologies
,
which also sells identity software, for $6.9 billion. BTIG Holdings analyst Gray Powell notes that Thoma Bravo is paying about 6.5 times expected 2023 sales.
Okta
,
a Ping rival, trades for 6.8 times, while
ForgeRock
,
another peer, for 5.8. The SailPoint deal, Powell adds, was priced at just over 10 times 2023 sales.
Powell says Ping’s term-license business model “has consistently created confusion in results and causes a higher degree of headline risk,” which leads him to believe no other bidder will emerge. Raymond James analyst Adam Tindle sees synergies between Ping and Thoma Bravo’s pending SailPoint deal.
The Ping deal had collateral effects: Okta, a pandemic darling that has struggled, rose 7.8% to $105.52, while ForgeRock, which went public in 2021 at $25 a share, jumped 8.8% to $23.65. By Friday, Ping shares traded just under the deal price at $27.92. Okta is still down 53% for the year, and ForgeRock is off 11%.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com
Last Week
Your Basic Draw
Stocks wavered over Taiwan tensions, fell after Federal Reserve officials reiterated hawkish sentiments, then rose on earnings. New jobless claims came in at 260,000, as expected; new jobs were a blowout, at 528,000. On the week, the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was off 0.13% to 32,803.47; the
S&P 500
edged up 0.36% to 4145.19; and the
Nasdaq Composite
rose 2.15% to 12,657.55.
The Earnings Beat
As a busy earnings week began,
Goldman Sachs
said 52% of companies had beaten, above expectations but below the last five quarters.
Devon Energy
led the shale-energy crowd with soaring profits and revenue. Big-oil
BP
posted its best profits in 14 years.
KKR
took a loss, blaming market volatility.
Robinhood Markets
lost $295 million and cut its workforce by 23%, and
Airbnb
missed.
Starbucks
and
CVS Health
beat,
Uber Technologies
reported its first positive quarterly cash flow, and
Moderna
and
PayPal
beat and stocks rallied.
Pelosi in Taiwan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a delegation of lawmakers visited Taiwan, despite rising tensions over the trip between the U.S. and China. After Pelosi left Taipei, China began live-fire drills off the coast, boycotted some Taiwanese products, and halted military and climate talks. Separately, a U.S. drone strike killed al-Queda leader Ayman al Zawahiri, 71, on a balcony in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Senate in Action
The Senate passed a bill it had rejected a week earlier providing funds for Afghan war veterans exposed to burn pits. Democrats dropped a curb on carried interest in the tax and climate bill to get Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s backing. And Kansas voters defeated a referendum to ban abortion in the state.
Getting the Grain Out
A ship carrying 26,000 tons of corn left Odessa for Lebanon—the first in a deal with Russia over grain shipments. Ukraine pressed its counteroffensive against Kherson as Russia continued to prepare to annex the region. A Russian court sentenced WNBA star Brittney Griner to nine years on drug charges.
Annals of Deal Making
The Justice Department tried to block two deals in separate trials at the same Washington, D.C., courthouse: the $2.2 billion merger of Bertelesmann’s Penguin Random House and
Paramount Global
’s
Simon & Schuster, and
UnitedHealth Group
’s
$8 billion deal for
Change Healthcare
…Global Payments said it would acquire
EVO Payments
for an enterprise value of $4 billion…
Toronto-Dominion Bank
agreed to acquire investment bank
Cowen
for $1 billion…The Wall Street Journal reported cosmetic giant
Estée Lauder
was in talks to buy luxury brand Tom Ford…An
Apollo Global Management
-led group agreed to buy airfreight company Atlas Air Worldwide for $3.2 billion…Thoma Bravo said it was taking
Ping Identity
private for $2.8
billion…Amazon.com
said it was vacuuming up
iRobot
for $1.65 billion.
Write to Robert Teitelman at bob.teitelman@dowjones.com