Zendesk terminates $4.1B SurveyMonkey acquisition after its personal traders reject deal – TechCrunch

Zendesk introduced immediately that it was strolling away from the proposed $4.1 billion deal to buy Momentive, the homeowners of SurveyMonkey, after stockholders rejected the deal. The announcement comes simply two weeks after the corporate spurned a $17 billion takeover offer by personal fairness corporations.

Formally the corporate introduced it this manner: “Zendesk, Inc. (NYSE: ZEN) immediately introduced that it has terminated the Settlement and Plan of Merger by and amongst Zendesk, Milky Method Acquisition Corp., and Momentive International Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTV), after it didn’t obtain the approval of its stockholders to undertake the proposal to difficulty shares of Zendesk frequent inventory in reference to the proposed transaction on the Stockholder Assembly held on February 25, 2022.”

It needed to be a tricky blow to CEO and founder Mikkel Svane, who noticed SurveyMonkey and the broader Momentive enterprise as a method to push the corporate’s core customer support focus right into a wider buyer expertise market. Nonetheless, he put as optimistic a spin as he may in a blog post asserting the results of the shareholder vote.

“We deliberate to accumulate Momentive as a method to speed up our capacity to ship the way forward for buyer intelligence. Whereas we won’t be shifting ahead with that acquisition, we stay as dedicated as ever to serving to our clients get extra worth out of their information,” he wrote within the weblog publish.

He went on to say that the corporate would proceed to try to develop merchandise that increase the platform in ways in which make sense for the corporate’s core clients. That might imply constructing as an alternative of shopping for, an method that might maybe be extra palatable to inventory holders, who didn’t just like the hefty price ticket or the shift in technique to buyer expertise.

The Wall Avenue Journal reported earlier this month that traders, particularly Jana Companions, which owns 3% of the corporate’s inventory, together with the Janus Henderson mutual fund, which owns 5%, have been sad with the deal and the route it pushed the corporate. Finally the activist traders appeared to have gained the day.

As for Momentive, CEO Zander Laurie placed on a courageous face, saying in a press release that, “Whereas we’re dissatisfied that Zendesk stockholders didn’t vote to approve the transaction, we’re assured in our go-forward technique.” Maybe it is going to search a brand new purchaser or discover a method to go it alone with its present portfolio of merchandise.

Regardless, the deal is off and each firms must resolve the best way to proceed from right here.