Silver Lake is in early-stage talks to acquire enterprise software company Workday in a deal that would value the firm at approximately $43 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. No agreement has been reached and talks could still break down, the sources said.
The potential transaction would rank among the largest software acquisitions on record. Broadcom's $61 billion takeover of Qualcomm in 2018 remains the largest software and semiconductor deal by value. A successful Workday deal would exceed Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022 and Cisco's $37 billion purchase of AppDynamics' parent in 2019.
Workday provides cloud-based financial and human resources software to mid-market and enterprise customers. The company has a market capitalization that trades in the $40 billion range and counts thousands of clients including major financial institutions and manufacturers. Its cloud offering competes directly with SAP and Oracle in the large enterprise market.
Silver Lake is a technology-focused private equity firm with approximately $80 billion in assets under management. The firm has previously backed major acquisitions including Dell's $67 billion take-private in 2013 and Broadcom's technology acquisitions. Silver Lake typically invests in companies that have reached operating maturity but can benefit from operational improvements or strategic repositioning.
Workday has grown to $8 billion in annual revenue as of its most recent fiscal year and operates at a scale where a go-private transaction could appeal to a buyer seeking to unlock operational efficiency without the demands of quarterly earnings cycles. The company trades publicly on the NASDAQ under ticker WDAY.
The talks were first reported by Reuters, which cited people with knowledge of the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity. Both Workday and Silver Lake declined to comment to the news outlet.
Acquisitions of this size in enterprise software have become less frequent since 2022 as interest rates rose and deal financing became more costly. A $43 billion transaction would require substantial debt and equity capital to complete and would place significant execution risk on the combined entity post-close.
