Progress To Acquire Ipswitch, makers of WhatsUp Gold Network Monitoring.
Progress, the provider of application development and digital experience technologies, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Ipswitch, Inc., a producer of secure data file transfer and network management software, for $225 million in cash. Progress will fund the transaction with existing cash on hand and funds secured under a new credit facility. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to both non-GAAP earnings per share and cash flow. The acquisition will bolster Progress’ core offerings to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises, enabling those businesses to respond faster to business demands and to improve productivity.
Founded in 1991, Ipswitch serves approximately 24,000 customers in 170 countries. Ipswitch targets IT professionals and CTOs at SMBs and enterprises across a variety of industries. Ipswitch has approximately $75 million in revenue, of which 75% is recurring. Ipswitch has blue-chip customers across all verticals, including finance and banking, healthcare, insurance, retail, government and biotech.
Ipswitch’s primary products, MOVEit®, WhatsUp® Gold and WS_FTP®, enable small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises to provide secure data sharing and ensure high-performance infrastructure availability. MOVEit®, their flagship secure data transfer product, allows enterprise customers to securely transfer critical business information between users, locations and partners in compliance with data security regulations such as HIPAA, PCI DSS and the EU’s GDPR. WhatsUp® Gold enables small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises to continuously monitor and manage their IT infrastructure and applications, assuring high levels of performance and availability. WS_FTP® delivers FTP-based secure file transfer server and client capabilities to meet the needs of small and mid-sized businesses.
“Ipswitch has an excellent reputation, top quality products, a thriving customer base and partner ecosystem and highly skilled and engaged employees,” said Yogesh Gupta, CEO of Progress. “We are excited by the opportunity this acquisition affords both companies and our respective customers, partners and employees. Progress and Ipswitch have a common legacy of enabling businesses to solve mission-critical challenges with efficient, easy-to-use solutions.”
Gupta continued, “We’ve been saying for more than a year now that accretive M&A is an important part of our strategy. Ipswitch is exactly the type of acquisition we’ve been targeting to drive increased scale and cash flows. This acquisition meets all of our disciplined acquisition criteria and will provide excellent returns to our shareholders.”
“We are extremely proud of the incredible achievements and momentum the Ipswitch team has created to date,” said Michael Grossi, CEO of Ipswitch. “We expect this new chapter with Progress to provide even greater opportunities for our combined customers, partners and employees.”
