Avid today announced the completion of its acquisition by an affiliate of STG in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.4 billion. The acquisition was previously announced on August 9, 2023, and approved by Avid stockholders on November 2, 2023.
Under the terms of the merger agreement, Avid stockholders will receive $27.05 per share. As a result of the completion of this transaction, Avid common stock ceased trading prior to the opening of trading on November 7, 2023, and is no longer listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Avid now operates as a privately held company with its headquarters remaining in Burlington, Massachusetts. Jeff Rosica, Avid’s Chief Executive Officer and President, told us…
“By becoming a private company, we believe Avid will be able to achieve the speed of innovation, scale and performance required for us to continue leading the industry forward.
Combined with their significant operational and financial resources, STG brings deep investment experience in the technology sector that will accelerate the achievement of Avid’s strategic vision, building on the momentum of our successful ongoing transformation achieved over the past several years.”
William Chisholm, Managing Partner, and Patrick Fouhy, Principal of STG, added…
“We are excited to begin the next phase of Avid’s journey. Avid’s solutions are integral to content creation and management workflows across the film, television and music markets. Building on Avid’s established leadership position, we look forward to accelerating Avid’s growth trajectory through a deep focus on innovation and delivering enhanced customer value,”
Many people, particularly customers of Avid, were concerned that moving to private ownership would impact them negatively. We summarised some of the potential downsides in the article Why People Are Concerned About The Avid Deal but in our article Positive Ways Avid Can Calm Customer Nerves Over The STG Acquisition we speculated on opportunities for Avid to build confidence with the user base, and we have seen positive steps in terms of improved transparency about future plans and product roadmaps, and in pricing with the unexpected reintroduction of new perpetual licences for Pro Tools.
With the sale now complete, Avid is no longer constrained by its status as a publicly traded company, and potentially, this means that the positive benefits this transfer can bring will come about, and hopefully not the negatives, which some have been speculated upon.