Confluent stock soars as IBM announces $11 billion deal to acquire it
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna speaks at the SXSW conference on March 11, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Andy Wenstrand | Sxsw Conferences and Festivals | Getty Images
IBM’s Announced acquisition of data streaming platform on Monday unified In a deal worth $11 billion.
Shares of Confluent rose 29% premarket. IBM shares fell about 1%.
According to the statement, IBM will pay $31 per share in cash for all issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent. The transaction is expected to be completed in mid-2026. Confluent shares closed at $23.14 on Friday.
“With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide an intelligent data platform specifically designed for AI for enterprise IT,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a statement.
Tune in at 10 a.m. as IBM CEO Arvind Krishna joins CNBC TV to discuss the deal. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or CNBC Pro streaming.
IBM said the deal will bolster its AI offerings as it expects global data growth to more than double by 2028.
The addition of Confluent fits with IBM’s agreement last year to buy cloud software maker HashiCorp for $6.4 billion and its move to acquire Apptio in 2023 in a deal valued at $4.6 billion. Both of these acquisitions were all-cash deals.
Confluent has more than 6,500 customers across major industries and works with Anthropic. Amazonof AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft, Snowflake et al.
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