The private equity fund EQT would be exploring the sale of SUSEeight years after its acquisition. According to information published by Reuters, the operation could value the company at up to 6 billion dollars (about 5.1 billion euros), although the process is still in an early phase.
According to the sources cited by the media, EQT has hired the investment bank Arma Partners to explore the interest of different private equity investors in a possible transaction. However, the talks are at such an early stage that there is not even certainty that the sale will finally materialize.
None of the parties involved have yet commented on this information or responded to Reuters requests. Nor have they denied what the agency describes as an exclusive based on well-founded sources.
The move comes after EQT bought back all of SUSE’s shares to take the company private. This occurred in 2023 and the valuation then was about 2,960 million dollars (about 2,720 million euros), so if the news and the cost of the operation were confirmed, the value of the company would have practically doubled in just over two years.
According to estimates cited by Reuters, SUSE generates around $800 million in annual revenue and more than $250 million in EBITDA (operating profit before taxes, interest and amortization). These figures place the possible value of the operation in a range of between 4,000 and 6,000 million dollars.
If the offer is confirmed and the purchase is completed, SUSE would be close to changing owners once again: the fifth already. The company was born in Germany in 1992 and, after more than thirty years of experience, it has passed through the hands of Novell, The Attachmate Group, Micro Focus and now EQT.
The question would be whether, after the “independence” gained with EQT – a private equity firm based in Sweden and the first owner whose business interests were not directly related to the German company’s technology – things could change within SUSE and, above all, with the projects they develop.
