IBM Completes $6.4B Acquisition of HashiCorp

By Tamara Parker • Thursday, February 27 15:16 • Permanent Link

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced the completion of its acquisition of HashiCorp, with the closing including all of the issued and outstanding common shares of HashiCorp for $35 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of $6.4 billion.

The acquisition is expected to drive significant synergies for IBM across multiple strategic growth areas, including Red Hat, WatsonX, data security, IT automation, and consulting. For example, HashiCorp's capabilities, such as Terraform and Vault, are set to complement IBM's commitment to industry collaboration, developer, and open source communities for hybrid cloud and AI innovation.

HashiCorp's offerings, including Terraform and Vault, along with the broader product portfolio, are now available from IBM's automation software portfolio.

With the completion of the acquisition, IBM is poised to continue its investments in automation software, bolstering its portfolio of AI-driven IT automation capabilities. This includes AI-powered software for application management insights, full IT stack observability, application resource management tools, financial management solutions, and software to integrate applications and data across hybrid cloud environments.

The press release notes that Terraform, combined with the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, provides a powerful combination for automating foundational infrastructure creation across multiple cloud providers, with Ansible automating application configurations and middleware deployments on top of that infrastructure. Furthermore, HashiCorp Vault, combined with Red Hat OpenShift, is expected to provide robust secrets management and security capabilities across hybrid cloud environments.

IBM aims to continue investing in and growing HashiCorp capabilities, leveraging its leading technology and extensive developer community alongside IBM's global reach and R&D resources to infuse HashiCorp technology in every data center.

The press release also emphasizes that HashiCorp's capabilities enable enterprises to use automation to deliver lifecycle management for infrastructure and security, providing a system of record for the critical workflows needed for hybrid and multi-cloud environments. It is noted that nearly 75% of enterprises are using hybrid cloud, and by 2028, it is projected that generative AI will lead to the creation of 1 billion new cloud-native applications.

Today the company's shares have moved 0.0% to a price of $34.78. If you want to know more, read the company's complete 8-K report here.

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