Workday shares jumped nearly 18% to $206.45 on the news, valuing the software maker near $51.1 billion. The talks are ongoing and a deal is not guaranteed.
Silver Lake is in talks to buy Workday (WDAY) in what would be one of the largest software buyouts on record, people familiar with the matter said. The two companies have discussed a potential deal in recent months. Talks are ongoing and there is no guarantee a deal will materialize, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are confidential.
News of the talks sent Workday shares nearly 18% higher. The stock closed at $206.45, giving Workday a market value of about $51.1 billion, up from roughly $43 billion before Reuters reported the discussions.
Silver Lake could bring in additional investors to finance the deal, one of the people said. The firm teamed up with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners on its roughly $55 billion take-private of videogame maker Electronic Arts last year.
Neither Silver Lake nor Workday immediately responded to requests for comment.
Workday's stock had been under pressure before the report. Shares were down about 15% this year and more than 40% below their 2024 peak. Investors have questioned the durability of traditional software in an era of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence.
Private equity firms have largely stayed on the sidelines of large software buyouts this year. Concerns over artificial intelligence have made it harder to assess the future growth and value of traditional software companies. The uncertainty has left a dearth of big take-private deals.
Hg Capital agreed in January to take financial software maker OneStream private for about $6.4 billion, one of the larger software buyouts announced this year. Thoma Bravo's agreement to acquire payroll software provider Dayforce is valued at about $12.3 billion. A Workday deal at current prices would be bigger than both combined.
Silver Lake has a history of backing technology and software companies, among them computer maker Dell Technologies and cloud software company VMware. Its portfolio has also included experience-management software maker Qualtrics.
Workday went public in 2012 after being founded in 2005 by former PeopleSoft executives Aneel Bhusri and David Duffield. The Pleasanton, California-based company sells cloud-based software for human resources, payroll, finance, spending and planning. Its customer base tops 11,500 globally, including Netflix, US Bank, Johns Hopkins University and Thomson Reuters. Workday employs about 2,200 people in Ireland.
Bhusri returned as chief executive in February, replacing Carl Eschenbach. Workday reported revenue of $9.6 billion in fiscal 2025, up 13%, and operating cash flow of $2.9 billion, up 19%. Revenue growth, however, has slowed from 16% the previous year.
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