SAN JOSE — Cisco is buying San Francisco-based cybersecurity company Splunk for $157 per share in cash, or about $28 billion. Upon close of the deal, Splunk President and CEO Gary Steele will join Cisco’s Executive Leadership Team reporting to Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins.
Shares in Splunk closed Wednesday at $119.59 and were up 25% on Thursday trading.
The acquisition builds on Splunk’s heritage of helping organizations enhance their digital resilience and will accelerate Cisco’s strategy to securely connect everything to make anything possible. The combination of these two established leaders in AI, security and observability will help make organizations more secure and resilient.
“We’re excited to bring Cisco and Splunk together. Our combined capabilities will drive the next generation of AI-enabled security and observability,” said Chuck Robbins, chair and CEO of Cisco. “From threat detection and response to threat prediction and prevention, we will help make organizations of all sizes more secure and resilient.”
“Uniting with Cisco represents the next phase of Splunk’s growth journey, accelerating our mission to help organizations worldwide become more resilient, while delivering immediate and compelling value to our shareholders,” said Gary Steele, president and CEO of Splunk.
“Together, we will form a global security and observability leader that harnesses the power of data and AI to deliver excellent customer outcomes and transform the industry. We’re thrilled to join forces with a long-time and trusted partner that shares our passion for innovation and world-class customer experience, and we expect our community of Splunk employees will benefit from even greater opportunities as we bring together two respected and purpose-driven organizations,” Steele added.
Splunk’s security capabilities complement Cisco’s existing portfolio, and together, will provide leading security analytics and coverage from devices to applications to clouds.
The deal is expected to close by the third quarter of 2024.
