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HN SmartFriends™, what does this mean? What's the risk for companies which are highly invested in SUSE?
by CharlesW 3y ago
HN SmartFriends™, what does this mean? What's the risk for companies which are highly invested in SUSE?
- jacooper 3y agoEQT already owned the majority of SUSE, I doubt this will change anything.
- JonChesterfield 3y agoThe PE firm sees a path to profit by changing things about SUSE. This might be fine - e.g. they can write off the existing debt to themselves in order to strengthen the company finances. If the exit plan is some variant on improving the company and selling it on, could be good all round. The trepidation is that PE firms are also a bit prone to asset stripping and discarding the remaining carcass of the organisation, in which case this marks the beginning of the end of SUSE. I've no idea how to tell which path is more likely or even which is their current intent though.
- mamonster 3y agoThere are usually 2 plays tech PE does: 1)Expedited vendor lock-in: Figure out who is locked into the software, make the software maximally shitty/maximally costly so that these people would still not switch and then make money off the cost savings/higher prices and hope to make up investment. 2)Off market prep for trade sale: SUSE could be interesting for someone to acquire but a competitor/strategic buyer can't afford to buy the company and do the reorgs needed itself as it would tank the share price too much. The PE firm buys it, does the reorg off market and then does a trade sale of a reorged company to the buyer, but only now SUSE is way better as an acquisition target.