Attachmate Corporation to Acquire Novell

11/22/2010

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Attachmate Corporation announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire, upon closing, Novell, Inc. in a transaction valued at approximately $2.2 billion.

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Novell, a provider of intelligent workload management, helps organizations deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments through solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux based operating platforms.

Attachmate Corporation is owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital and Thoma Bravo. As part of the transaction, Elliott Management Corporation, one of Novell’s largest shareholders, will become an equity shareholder in Attachmate Corporation. Upon close, Attachmate Corporation will manage a brand portfolio consisting of Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE. "Novell, SUSE, Attachmate and NetIQ have complementary product portfolios and many shared customers," said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of Novell.

The transaction is currently expected to close in the first quarter of 2011 and is subject to customary closing conditions including antitrust clearance, Novell stockholder approval and certain other regulatory approvals and closing conditions. The transaction is also conditioned upon the concurrent closing of Novell’s planned sale of certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC.