Hong Kong News

Nonpartisan, Noncommercial, unconstrained.
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

$286M Of SolarWinds Stock Sold Before CEO, Hack Disclosures

$286M Of SolarWinds Stock Sold Before CEO, Hack Disclosures

Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo said they weren’t aware of the cyberattack at the time of the sale, but didn’t respond to questions about whether they knew Sudhakar Ramakrishna had been selected as SolarWinds’ next CEO.
SolarWinds majority owners Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo sold $286 million of stock just before the company announced a new CEO and disclosed a cyberattack.

The private equity firms disposed of more than 13 million SolarWinds stock shares at $21.97 per share on Dec. 7, two days before the IT infrastructure management firm announced Pulse Secure’s Sudhakar Ramakrishna as its next CEO. Four days after that, SolarWinds disclosed that it had experienced a highly sophisticated, manual supply chain attack on certain versions of its Orion network monitoring product.

SolarWinds’ stock is now trading at $18.46, nearly 16 percent lower than what Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo sold their shares for. Silver Lake sold 5.8 percent of its stake in publicly held SolarWinds for $157.5 million, while Thoma Bravo also sold 5.8 percent of its somewhat smaller stake in SolarWinds for $128.3 million. The stock sales were first reported late Tuesday evening by The Washington Post.

“Thoma Bravo and Silver Lake were not aware of this potential cyberattack at SolarWinds prior to entering into a private placement to a single institutional investor on 12/7,” the companies said in a joint statement. The private equity firms didn’t respond to questions from CRN about whether they knew Ramakrishna had been selected as SolarWinds’ next CEO at the time they sold $286 million of stock.

Representatives from Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo make up a majority of SolarWinds’ 11-member board, and owned more than three-quarters of SolarWinds’ outstanding shares as of April, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Silver Lake is represented by Michael Bingle, Kenneth Hao and Mike Widmann, while Thoma Bravo is represented by Seth Boro, Michael Hoffman and James Lines.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) spent $315 million to take a 5 percent stake in SolarWinds, acquiring some of the shares previously owned by Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo, SolarWinds disclosed Dec. 9 in the press release announcing Ramakrishna as CEO. SolarWinds declined to comment, while CPP Investments and the SEC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

FireEye disclosed Dec. 8 that it was breached in a state-sponsored attack designed to gain information on some of the company’s government customers. FireEye determined by Friday that some SolarWinds Orion updates had been corrupted and contacted the company shortly thereafter, The Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the matter. SolarWinds has not said when it learned of the breach.

This was the largest sale of SolarWinds stock for Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo since the company went public in October 2018, according to The Washington Post. In all of 2019, Silver Lake sold about $140 million of SolarWinds stock while Thoma Bravo sold about $110 million of SolarWinds stock, The Post reported.

SolarWinds was founded in 1999 and conducted its first initial public offering (IPO) in May 2009, and spent nearly seven years being traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Then in February 2016, Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo took SolarWinds private following a $4.5 billion purchase of the company.

SolarWinds was privately held for just 32 months before going through its second IPO in late 2018.

SolarWinds got into the solution provider business in May 2013 through its purchase of N-able to better service MSPs who support SMB clients. Then in June 2016, SolarWinds bought N-able competitor LogicNow and brought the two remote monitoring and management (RMM) rivals together under the SolarWinds MSP banner.

While hackers over the past two years have taken advantage of the tools MSPs rely on to manage customer IT systems, the tools compromised in this breach do not appear to be linked to SolarWinds’ MSP business. The Orion platform supports SolarWinds’ longtime IT infrastructure management business and isn’t connected to the more recently assembled SolarWinds MSP business.

SolarWinds MSP said it isn’t aware of any impact to its remote monitoring and management (RMM), N-Central and associated products from the attack on Orion, President John Pagliuca said in a security advisory posted Sunday evening. Pagliuca would take over as SolarWinds MSP CEO if the proposed spin-off of the business into a standalone company that has been under consideration for months happens.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Hong Kong News
0:00
0:00
Close
It's always the people with the dirty hands pointing their fingers
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
'I am not your servant': IndiGo crew member, passenger get into row over airline meal
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
BMW driver…
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
×