Nov 11, 2019
OpenText CEO open to more acquisitions after Carbonite deal
BNN Bloomberg
'Security needs to be job number one': Open Text CEO
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The chief executive officer of OpenText Corp. said his company is open to more acquisitions after announcing on Monday a US$1.42-billion deal to buy Carbonite Inc.
“We still have more capital to deploy with the right deal,” OpenText’s CEO Mark Barrenechea told BNN Bloomberg’s Jon Erlichman in an interview Monday from Silicon Valley. “We’re very focused on getting Carbonite closed, getting our business system to optimize and this is our sole focus.”
“But we still have capital to deploy, and if the right deal comes along, we’re interested.”
Boston-based Carbonite brings a focus of cloud-based subscription data protection, backup, disaster recovery, and end-point security for a variety of customers.
“Security needs to be job number one. It can’t be job [number] seven. Security can’t be deep in the data centre – it has to be job number one,” Barrenechea said.
Cloud computing has become a key focus for many of the world's largest technology companies including Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Alibaba.
The Carbonite deal will be the ninth cloud-focused acquisition for Waterloo, Ont.-based OpenText, which has bought firms such as EasyLink, GXS, Covisint, and Liaison Technologies, Barrenechea said.
He added the Carbonite acquisition keeps his company on a continual path to becoming a full cloud business.
“These [growth-by-acquisition] companies, they need to stay in the headlines,” Purpose Investments Chief Investment Officer Greg Taylor told BNN Bloomberg.
“The worst thing you could have is a growth company that stops growing.”
Barrenechea said on a conference call Monday that with Carbonite focused largely on the U.S. market, Open Text can leverage its network of clients globally in places like the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Australia to expand demand.
Under the deal, Open Text will pay US$23 per share in cash for about US$800 million in total, while debt obligations bring the total deal value to about US$1.42 billion.
The company says it expects to close the deal within 90 days.
OpenText, which has a market capitalization of $15 billion, provides enterprise information management software, helping companies digitize processes and supply chains for more efficient operations among other services.
With files from The Canadian Press
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