Please don't let SAS be gutted by private equity like they already did to many other companies.
How Private Equity Gutted Local Malls: Joann Fabrics, Red Lobster, Claire's, and More.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_7SQDuUKQs
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Private Equity is Going After Your Utilities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkK2AnaMFiU
The Art Department, which is safe, will be decimated if private equity bros buy the company. That won’t happen.
@jw it’s almost as if we’re all just cogs 🤔
It's really unfortunate that we have to keep finding out company direction and plans from media outlets when we haven’t heard anything internally.
@ec The numbers need work in more than one way.
The article states that "SAS’ revenue rose 9% last quarter".
That might mean 9% more than the previous quarter.
It might mean 9% more than the same quarter in the previous year.
It surely does not mean 9% annual revenue growth, after 13 years of zero.
@e5 "Improvements in the near future could make IPO possible."
What improvements would that be? They even admit that aren't even halfway to the "Rule of 40":
"The numbers also need work. Before hitting the roadshow, Goodnight wants to meet the Rule of 40, a common software company benchmark in which revenue growth rate and profit margin sum to 40. That might help the company defend its share price in public markets, especially when pitted against fast-growing competition. But with both components sitting at around 10%, Goodnight says SAS isn’t even halfway there."
@dp I think SAS would want to but the timing is not right. Not enough revenue growth, too much technical debt and the wrong leadership. Improvements in the near future could make IPO possible.
SAS wants the option to go public. An IPO often brings the best price.
On the other hand, a private sale is simpler and faster. So they want the option to do either.
The owners have almost certainly set up trusts in their wills, to mitigate estate taxes. But presumably the trustees could sell or IPO.
Why doesn't SAS want to go public instead?
I think it’s telling that the recent article on “IPO readiness” mentioned other options like trusts.
Who knows though?
It is free-market capitalism.
Private equity, or a company like Broadcom that uses a similar playbook, are the only likely buyers.
It’s a scourge.