Progress moves back toward enterprise sales with Telerik buy

Contact: Scott Denne

Progress Software becomes an aggressive buyer as revenue begins to accelerate. The application development and data infrastructure vendor has announced that it’s acquiring Bulgaria-based Telerik for $263m in its largest deal (and at 4.4x, its highest multiple) on record.

The acquisition is Progress’ third of the year, following just one last year and none in 2012 as the company took a break from buying and divested several of its previous purchases. In an earlier M&A spree between 2005-2008, Progress picked up nine businesses for a median $25m in an attempt to go upmarket to larger enterprises.

The company expects to finish the year with revenue 6-10% higher than last year, compared with 5% growth in 2013, which followed a few years of decline. Now that Progress has refocused its business strategy on its core application development offering, it’s looking to go upmarket again – but with a more cohesive product set – by snagging Telerik.

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Posted in M&A