This little-known software company just became one of the kings of the UK tech industry
Minions
Micro Focus, an IT company headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire, bought Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), HP's software business, on Wednesday in a deal worth $8.8 billion (£6.6 billion), creating one of the UK's largest software businesses by revenue, according to The Financial Times.
A quick analysis suggests that Micro Focus, which provides software and consultancy services for clients updating legacy systems to more modern platforms, may even be the biggest UK software company by revenue.
Revenues in the newly-formed company stand at $4.5 billion (£3.4 billion), according to the official press release announcing the deal, meaning it has a higher turnover than UK tech giants like Newcastle software firm Sage (£1.4 billion, 2015) and recently acquired chip designer ARM (£968 million, 2015).
Micro Focus, which was admitted to the FTSE 100 last week, is now valued at £5.4 billion by the London markets.
The 40-year-old company, which was founded in 1976, will gain 50,000 HPE customers, including 94 of the Fortune 100 companies, as a result of the deal.
HPE includes the assets of Autonomy, the UK software company that HP bought from entrepreneur Mike Lynch in a controversial deal in 2011.
Kevin Loosemore, executive chairman of Micro Focus, said in a statement: "Today's announcement marks another significant milestone for Micro Focus and is wholly consistent with the long-term business strategy we have been pursuing to be the most disciplined global provider of infrastructure software.
"The merger will create one of the world's largest infrastructure software companies with leading positions across a number of key products and represents a compelling opportunity to create significant value for both companies' shareholders by applying Micro Focus' proven approach to efficient management of mature software products. "
Loosemore told the BBC that he approached Hewlett Packard about the deal in February and was not put off by the market turbulence that came after the Brexit vote in the UK in June.
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