DGAP-News: SUSE / Key word(s): IPO
SUSE: SUSE plans initial public offering (IPO) in Q2 2021
2021-04-26 / 07:30
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Press release
SUSE plans initial public offering (IPO) in Q2 2021
- A global independent leader in open source software, specializing in Linux enterprise operating systems, container
management and storage, as well as Edge software solutions
- Relied upon by many of the world's largest enterprises to power mission-critical workloads and accelerate their
digital transformation
- Best positioned to take share in a large and rapidly growing serviceable addressable market supported by global IT
megatrends and expected to grow by 24% p.a. to reach approximately USD19 billion by 2024
- Exceptional financial profile characterized by fast growing, recurring revenues at scale, strong customer economics,
as well as superior profitability and cash generation
- Proven platform to capture long-term market growth potential with additional organic and inorganic levers to further
accelerate growth
- The Offering will include newly issued shares by SUSE as well as secondary shares from existing shareholders
- Intended listing on the regulated market (Prime Standard) of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange expected to be completed in
Q2 2021, subject to market conditions
Nuremberg, 26 April 2021 - Marcel LUX IV SARL (to be converted into SUSE S.A. prior to the IPO) (the "Company" or
"SUSE") and its owner Marcel LUX III SARL ("the Selling Shareholder"), a company indirectly owned by funds advised by
EQT AB Group, today announced the intention to list SUSE's shares on the Regulated Market of the Frankfurt Stock
Exchange (Prime Standard). The planned initial public offering ("IPO" or the "Offering") is expected to comprise of
newly issued shares from a capital increase and existing shares owned by the Selling Shareholder to create a liquid
market for the Company's shares. The Company plans to complete the Offering in the second quarter of 2021, subject to
market conditions. The Offering is envisaged as a public offer in Germany and private placements in certain
jurisdictions outside Germany.
Melissa Di Donato, CEO of SUSE, said: "It is incredible to see how far SUSE has come over the past three decades,
growing to be a leading global open source innovator trusted by many of the largest companies in the world. It also
exhibits an exceptional financial profile with a unique combination of fast-growing recurring revenues at scale as well
as attractive profitability and cash generation. Today marks the beginning of our next chapter. The planned IPO will
give us the strategic and financial flexibility to secure our independence for the long term, maintain our absolute
commitment to our open source DNA and strong sustainability vision, and continue to support our customers' digital
transformations. As we stand at the intersection of open source innovation and enterprise IT, what matters most to SUSE
is giving customers the power to innovate everywhere."
Jonas Persson, Chairperson of the Board of SUSE, said: "Led by our world-class and highly experienced management team,
we have accelerated our performance in recent years and positioned SUSE strongly in several large and fast-growing
markets. The planned IPO will allow SUSE to build on this position, enabling us to further accelerate our growth
through both organic levers and selected acquisitions. Mega-trends such as exponential growth in workloads and data,
rising cloud adoption and the growing popularity of IoT / Edge mean that the digitalization of modern enterprises is
going to continue at speed, and we look forward to further supporting our customers through their digital
transformation journeys."
Johannes Reichel, Partner at EQT Partners, said: "When EQT acquired SUSE three years ago, we were attracted by the
Company's unique position as one of the leading and sizeable platforms in the open source infrastructure software
space. We are excited to continue supporting SUSE along its journey: starting with the carve-out from Micro Focus,
building the platform through investing into the organization, providing capital to realize the strategic acquisition
of Rancher, and now supporting SUSE in its IPO. While the IPO is a very important step for SUSE, our journey continues
as SUSE's largest shareholder. We are more convinced than ever about the long-term potential of SUSE and look forward
to working with the management to realize this over the coming years."
Powering mission-critical workloads for many of the world's largest enterprises
Many of the world's largest enterprises rely on SUSE to power their most mission-critical workloads, using its
solutions to reliably and securely run and manage all their business-critical legacy, modern, and cloud-native
applications and workloads across a hybrid cloud infrastructure. Specializing in Linux enterprise operating systems,
container management and storage, as well as Edge software solutions, SUSE supports and drives the digital
transformation of its customers. For example, these include nine out of ten of the world's largest retailers, five out
of five of the world's largest technology firms, and thirteen out of fifteen of the world's largest pharmaceutical
firms, as ranked by revenue.
SUSE's history began shortly after the Linux kernel was started in 1991. Founded in 1992 and headquartered in
Nuremburg, Germany, SUSE was the first company to introduce enterprise capabilities to the Linux open source operating
system. Today, its offering is grouped into two open source software product categories - the SUSE Linux Enterprise
product family, which comprises its core Linux operating system offering, and the SUSE Rancher product family, which
comprises its container management and storage offering. Taken together, these are the key pillars of every modern
enterprise's digital transformation strategy.
The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system is an enterprise-grade, secure, and adaptable operating system that
is trusted by more than 60% of the Fortune Global 500 across all industries and geographies. SUSE's container
management platform "SUSE Rancher" has been downloaded over 100 million times since its introduction into the market,
making it one of the industry's most widely adopted solutions for managing Kubernetes containers across any
environment. SUSE also has a differentiated Edge offering, comprised of a comprehensive platform of purpose-built Linux
and Kubernetes technologies, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro and K3s, which together enable its customers to build,
deploy, run, and manage Edge workloads.
Well-positioned in rapidly growing markets that benefit from the accelerating digitalization of modern enterprises
As a result of global megatrends like big data, rising cloud adoption and the growing popularity of IoT / Edge, there
is an exponential growth in data creation and IT workloads. Many enterprises are therefore accelerating their digital
transformation and fundamentally changing their requirements towards IT infrastructure. Coupled with the move of
existing and new workloads to hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, this is driving a significantly growing adoption of
open source technologies, such as Linux or Kubernetes. At the same time, the massive growth of the IoT market, which
requires Edge computing, is also driving demand for Linux and containers.
SUSE believes it is well-positioned within these vast and rapidly growing markets. Its total addressable market ("TAM")
comprised of Linux enterprise operating systems, container management and storage, and Edge, is expected to grow at a
compound annual growth rate ("CAGR") of 17% between 2020 and 2024 to reach approximately USD34 billion by 2024^[1]. The
serviceable addressable market, which only covers the segments of the TAM targeted by SUSE's solutions, is expected to
grow even faster than the TAM, with a CAGR of 24% between 2020 and 2024^[2].
Proven business model, centred on open source innovation to empower customers' mission critical digital transformation,
which drives a highly predictable and recurring revenue stream
All of SUSE's products are developed using an open source innovation model. The open source community, consisting of
millions of developers - including SUSE employees - contributes to open source projects every day, resulting in rapid
innovation, software enhancements and bug fixes. SUSE leverages code and software that comes from the upstream
community, which its engineers further develop and refine to make more efficient and ready for deployment to enterprise
customers. This open source ethos creates a virtuous circle whereby SUSE leverages valuable contributions from the
community which, in turn, allows it to build better, more stable, and more resilient products that benefit both SUSE's
customers and the open source community.
SUSE has highly predictable and recurring revenues, driven by approximately 98% subscription revenue in 2020, stemming
from long-standing customer relationships and subscription contracts with a weighted average contract length of 19
months^[3]. While the code is freely available to anyone, the paid subscription services offer enterprise-grade
capabilities. These include integration and packaging, performance optimization, hardened reliability, high
availability, vulnerability and security monitoring, software and hardware certifications as well as certifications for
regulated industries including secure software supply chain and security, and ongoing round-the-clock technical
support. (MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires
April 26, 2021 01:30 ET (05:30 GMT)
