Adobe Systems announced last week that it would acquire e-commerce service provider Magento Commerce from private equity firm Permira for a massive $1.68 billion. This will be the company’s biggest deal in nearly a decade.
Following this news, shares of Adobe rose about 1 percent in extended trading. The Photoshop maker also said it would buy back up to $8 billion of shares through its fiscal year of 2021.
Adobe said the deal would help bolster its Experience Cloud business, which provides services including analytics, advertising, and marketing.
“Adobe is the only company with leadership in content creation, marketing, advertising, analytics, and now commerce – enabling real-time experiences across the entire customer journey,” Brad Rencher, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Adobe, said in a statement. “Embedding commerce into the Adobe Experience Cloud with Magento enables Adobe to make every moment personal and every experience shoppable.”
Magento was acquired by Permira from eBay Inc in 2015 and counts Canon, Helly Hansen, Paul Smith, and Rosetta Stone among its clients.
“Magento has grown its customer-base and enterprise cloud business as a result of key investments in technology, marketing, client success, sales management and the open-source community ecosystem,” Phil Guinand, a partner at Permira, said in a statement.
“Adobe and Magento share a vision for the future of digital experiences that brings together Adobe’s strength in content and data with Magento’s open commerce innovation,” said Mark Lavelle, CEO, Magento. “We’re excited to join Adobe and believe this will be a great opportunity for our customers, partners, and developer community.”
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of Adobe’s 2018 fiscal year. After that, Magento CEO Mark Lavelle will continue to lead the Magento team, reporting to Rencher.
