By Investing.com Staff
Confirming recent rumblings that the private equity takeover was on thin ice, a near-term sale of Zendesk, Inc. (NYSE:ZEN) is now officially off the table.
Zendesk shares fell 9% in early trading Thursday after it announced that it has concluded its review of strategic alternatives and the board has unanimously determined it should remain an independent, public company.
Yesterday, CNBC's David Faber reported that the takeover was looking less likely as "club" deals involving multiple private equity firms are often difficult to put together and in this case, the partners "put the pencils down."
In February, Zendesk rejected an up to $16 billion acquisition offer from a private equity consortium. This was around the same time that shareholders voted down Zendesk's deal to acquire SurveyMonkey parent Momentive Global.
The unpopular SurveyMonkey deal attracted activist investors to the stock, including JANA Partners, who ended up pushing for a sale of Zendesk.
Yesterday, JANA threatened to sue the company if it didn't set their annual meeting, which it did today. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, at 8:00 a.m. June 27, 2022, will be the record date for shareholders.
JANA is looking to elect four independent directors to the board. JANA said absent a significant boardroom change to restore Zendesk’s credibility, the Company must be sold.