Infor pulls-in further $1.5bn investment ahead of anticipated IPO

Koch Equity and Golden Gate Capital takes total investment of past two years to $3.5bn

Manufacturing software specialist Infor has pulled-in a further $1.5 billion in investment from existing shareholders Koch Equity and Golden Gate Capital.

The investment comes as the company admits that it is considering an IPO in 2019 or 2020, "subject to market conditions".

The investment comes following a burst of investment by the company in shifting its manufacturing software products into the cloud. The company claims that it has invested around $2.5 billion in product design and development over the past five years under the leadership of CEO Charles Phillips.

That investment has resulted in 475 new products, 1,870 "integrations" and 20,700 industry features in the company's CloudSuite product line, while the company claims revenues of more than $3 billion in fiscal 2018. Seventy per cent of its software licence revenues are now generated from cloud applications, the company claims.

"Koch was a customer of Infor before we became an investor in the Company, and Koch Industries' companies continue to move their most mission critical applications to Infor CloudSuites," said Jim Hannan, CEO of Enterprises for Koch Industries.

However, the company's plan to seek a public listing could be affected by the new year decline in the value of technology stocks, led by Apple. Its market capitalisation is down by one-quarter in recent months, from more than $1 billion in the summer to $733 billion today.