Qualtrics announces public offering

The world of HR technology has seen a boom in recent years. Increasingly, companies in the employee engagement and experience space are reaching the long-sought-after unicorn status and there are some who are going beyond a billion-dollar evaluation.

Even existing companies like Oracle, Salesforce, Workday, and SAP have appreciated 20.8% over the tumultuous period.

The likes of Qualtrics, an experience management solution, have seen their value sore during the pandemic, and back in July, the company announced it was going public. This was two years after its $8 billion SAP acquisition.

Today, the software that is used to capture and act on customer, product, brand & employee experience insights in one place, announced the launch of its proposed public offering.

The public will be able to purchase 21,482,277 shares Qualtric’s Class A common stock. All of the shares of common stock are being offered by Qualtrics.

On top of that, the company expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 3,222,341 additional shares of its Class A common stock.

However, this offer is subject to market conditions and there are no assurances about whether the offering may be completed or whether its size will change.

Goldman Sachs and HSBC are acting as lead book-running managers for the proposed offering. Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Truist Securities are acting as book running managers.

Qualtrics will use the net proceeds from the sale of its shares in the offering to repay a promissory note payable to SAP. The rest of the money will go towards furthering the business.

A long time coming

Three years ago, in November 2018, Qualtrics looked set to launch an initial public offering (IPO). Nonetheless, the company was purchased by SAP just before the big day for $8 billion.

Speaking about going public now, Qualtrics’ CEO, Zig Serafin, told Forbes: “We’ve been able to exceed what SAP was looking to accomplish with Qualtrics inside of SAP, and the same thing is true for us.

“We ended up accelerating the way that we’re building this XM [experience management] category, substantially.”

Going forward, co-founder Smith is excited about Qualtrics’ potential noting: “We are a better company” than in 2018. Adding: “It’s almost like being able to flip over more cards to see your hand… I’m way more confident this time around.”

Qualtrics going forward

The employee experience and management area looks set to continue growing as hybrid work becomes more commonplace.

HR industry analyst Fosway, in partnership with UNLEASH, recently spoke to 313 HR professionals across Europe.

77% of respondents noted that employee experience was driving change within organizations.

With this in mind, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see plenty of people trying to get their hands on the stock of Qualtrics.