Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) has made a takeover offer worth more than $20 billion for software maker Splunk Inc. Its most recent deal of size was its nearly $5 billion purchase of Acacia Communications Inc. in 2021.
Splunk is currently searching for a chief executive after Doug Merritt stepped down from the role in November after roughly six years following a series of disappointing earnings reports. The company named Chairman Graham Smith as interim CEO, a position he still holds.
Splunk, founded in 2003, makes software used by companies’ information-technology and security operations to monitor and analyze data.
Software has been a hot corner of the M&A market lately, with a number of companies in the sector being snapped up by private-equity firms or other industry players. In one of the latest examples, Citrix Systems Inc. agreed to be taken private by a pair of private-equity firms in an acquisition valued at $16.5 billion, including debt.
Splunk said in June that technology-focused private-equity firm Silver Lake was making a $1 billion investment in the company to help support the transformation of the business. Splunk has been shifting from a traditional software-licensing arrangement to a cloud-based subscription model. An increase in the shares on news of that investment had evaporated by the close of trading Friday.
There were $2.6 trillion of merger deals announced in the U.S. in 2021, up 76% from the prior year, according to Dealogic.