Private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquires self-service analytics company Qlik for $3bn

Third big software company acquisition this week as Qlik goes into private hands

Private equity firm Thoma Bravo has acquired self-service analytics firm Qlik in an all-cash transaction valued at about $3bn.

Qlik shareholders will receive $30.50 per share, which Qlik says "represents a premium of 40 per cent to the company's unaffected 10 day average stock price prior to March 3, 2016 of $21.83".

Its shares rose 4.26 per cent on the news in morning trading.

This is the third BI / analytics software deal announced this week, with business automation provider SciQuest being bought by Accel-KKR for $509m, and Demandware being acquired by Salesforce.com for about $2.8bn.

Qlik went public in 2010, but it had been seeking buyers for some time and had received preliminary offers from Bain Capital and Permira in addition to Thoma Bravo, according to Bloomberg.

"We believe the proposed transaction is in the best interest of Qlik's shareholders and provides the company with additional flexibility to execute our strategic plan as we continue to diligently provide customers with the premier products and services they have come to expect," said Lars Björk, CEO of Qlik in a press release.

"We look forward to partnering with the Qlik team as they continue to grow their platform-based approach to business intelligence (BI) and analytics," added Orlando Bravo, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo. "As the need for analytic solutions grows, Qlik is well-positioned to continue to drive innovation and lead the market."

"Qlik's platform blends best-in-class associative analytics and visualizations with data governance, scalability and interoperability," said Seth Boro, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo.

"We are excited by Qlik's product roadmap and confident that we can apply our experiences working with market-leading software companies to accelerate Qlik's growth and market share across all geographies."

The proposed acquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2016, subject to approval by Qlik's shareholders and regulatory authorities and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Qlik will keep its headquarters in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Among other technology acquisitions by Thoma Bravo in recent years are Riverbed Technologies, Compuware, Tripwire, Sailpoint, Landesk Software, Hyland Software, Embarcadero and Attachmate.