Silver Lake completes $12.5bn Qualtrics acquisition

Private equity firm Silver Lake, in partnership with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), has bought experience management giant Qualtrics from SAP.

SAP has owned a 71% stake in Qualtrics and its customer and employee experience tools since 2018 – previously, Silver Lake held a 4% stake in Qualtrics.

Silver Lake’s all-cash acquisition, which was first announced in March 2023 and valued at $12.5 billion, is now complete. This means that Silver Lake and CPP Investments now owns all of the remaining shares of Qualtrics. It’ll pay out $18.15 in cash for every share.

Qualtrics common stock will now cease trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

In a statement, SAP shared it “will remain a close go-to-market and technology partner to Qualtrics, servicing joint customers and continuing to contribute to their success”.In a statement, SAP shared it “will remain a close go-to-market and technology partner to Qualtrics, servicing joint customers and continuing to contribute to their success”.

As a result of the acquisition, Qualtrics joins the likes of Celonis, Dell, Airbnb, Klarna and Getir in Silver Lake’s investment portfolio.

At the same time as the purchase, Qualtrics announced a $1 billion total investment from Accel, BDT + MSD Partners and DFO Management – Accel will contribute $500 million, while the other two investors will spend $250 million each.

A bright future for Qualtrics

The acquisition won’t change the leadership setup at Qualtrics – CEO Zig Serafin will stay at the helm – and the company will remain headquartered in Provo, Utah.

Talking about the deal, Serafin commented: “Qualtrics has cemented its position as the leader in experience management. Our AI-powered platform is helping more than 19,000 organizations deliver exceptional experiences and build deep relationships with their customers and employees at scale.

“Silver Lake’s deep understanding of our business and vision for experience management, combined with their strategic and operational expertise and the support of our other investors, creates an incredible opportunity for Qualtrics to accelerate our innovation and category leadership.”

Silver Lake’s co-CEO Egon Durban added: “We believe deeply in the incredible opportunity ahead for Qualtrics as they continue to pave the way as the leader in experience management.

“The leadership team has a powerful vision, and we are excited to continue our partnership with Ryan [Smith, Qualtrics' founder] and Zig alongside the other investors to support Qualtrics as it realizes its full potential as an independent, private company.”“The leadership team has a powerful vision, and we are excited to continue our partnership with Ryan [Smith, Qualtrics' founder] and Zig alongside the other investors to support Qualtrics as it realizes its full potential as an independent, private company.”

In a LinkedIn post, Donnchadh Casey, chief customer officer at Qualtrics, wrote:

The question that remains is what impact will Silver Lake's acquisition of Qualtrics have on the company's 19,000 customers, and the employee experience space? Watch this space.