Rackspace Becomes the Latest IT Company to Go Private

Cloud-services provider #Rackspace is the latest IT company to abandon the public spotlight for the relative quiet and serenity of private ownership. The San Antonio, Texas-based company was acquired Aug. 26 by Apollo Global Management for $4.3 billion net cash, or $32 per share. The deal is expected to close in Q4, the company said. Rackspace provides hybrid cloud-based services that enable businesses to run their workloads in a public or private cloud. Competitors it faces on a daily basis include #AmazonWebServices, #GoogleCloud, #Microsoft #Azure and a number of others. Latest in a Line of Changeovers Rackspace's news is only the latest in a long line of companies that have made this move in the last five years. The most highly visible such move was made by #Dell Inc. in 2013, when founder #MichaelDell and his financial partners took the company private for $25 billion. Advertisement Other companies inside this trend include #IngramMicro (2016), #Marketo (2016), #Informatica (2015), #Riverbed (2015), #Veritas (2015), Websense (2013) and BMC (2013). Who's next? #Seagate Technologies has been mentioned as a candidate for at least six years. Michael Dell told eWEEK after his company's move to private ownership that "we can focus 100 percent on our customers so we don't have to focus on other things, shareholders, and that allows us to make bold decisions, invest for the long term ... We innovate across a lot of spaces on behalf of our customers, and having the freedom to do that without this 89-day planning cycle is just delightful with a business with the scale of ours. "Customer reaction has been very positive, business has been up double digits since we went private, so customers are throwing orders our way at a rapid rate. We're really thrilled with the results."

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