Corel Acquired for Over $1 Billion
- Paul Thurrott
- Jul 02, 2019
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20
Techcrunch is reporting that Corel has been acquired by private equity giant KKR for over $1 billion. The publication cites multiple sources and states that the acquisition has been confirmed.
“We now have a copy of the memo provided by an internal source that has been sent out to staff announcing that the deal has indeed closed, and that Corel is now officially part of the KKR family of companies,” Techcrunch claims. “KKR is very optimistic about Corel’s prospects. It plans to give Corel an ‘infusion of capital’ to accelerate its growth, which will go into two areas, … expanding operations for the existing business [and] making acquisitions.”
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Most famous for its CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, Corel owns a surprisingly vast range of software assets that also includes WordPerfect, WinZip, PaintShop Pro, and many others. Corel in December confirmed that it had acquired virtualization pioneer Parallels for an undisclosed sum.
Corel’s previous primary owner, Vector, has described the privately-held firm as “highly profitable,” and the firm is known to have “millions” of customers. Unlike many of its contemporaries from the 1980s, Corel has also succeeded simply by surviving. It was once positioned as the primary office productivity alternative to Microsoft Office.
The deal is likely a rich one for Vector. The firm initially paid $124 million for Corel and then paid $30 million to take it private in 2010.
Expect an official announcement on Wednesday.
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Conversation 20 comments
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#439371">In reply to locust infested orchard inc:</a></em></blockquote><p>'WordPerfect was already very much on the ropes when Corel bought them. IMO Corel Draw is the only first-class product owned by Corel.</p>
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skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#439390">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>I recall that WordPerfect's leadership claimed that Microsoft had "fooled" them into developing for OS/2 instead of Windows. But year or two earlier I read an interview with the CEO saying that although customers were asking for a Windows version, they didn't want to do it.</p><p><br></p><p>You were right about the usability problems on Windows. The company I worked for at the time was an early adopter of WordPerfect for Windows and I crashed it in the first 10 min of use. </p><p><br></p><p>I think they were so proud of their pre-Windows printer drivers they couldn't let go of them. I recall in the DOS versions of WordPerfect it was always "guess how big the <em>Large </em>font is going to be for <em>this</em> printer". TrueType changed everything and combined with ink-jet printers, brought down the investment for desktop publishing dramatically.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
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