Following a delay, and then cancellation, relating to Embarcadero’s stock option accounting problems, the San Franisco, California-based company has finally been acquired by Thoma Cressey Bravo at the reduced price of $200m.
That figure is down from the $234m price tag that was put on the company when the deal was first announced in September 2006, and can be seen as a direct result of a special committee of the board found evidence of backdating of stock options.
The need for Embarcadero to restate its financial accounts all the way back to 2000 initially caused a delay in Thoma Cressey Bravo’s plans before the whole deal was shelved in December 2006.
At the beginning of April the deal was back on, albeit at the reduced price of $7.20 per share, while in May Embarcadero filed its financial reports for the year ended December 31, 2006 and quarter ended March 31, 2007 and restated certain figures for 2005.
Embarcadero is now privately held, but one person that did not make it to ownership under Thoma Cressey Bravo is co-founder and former chief executive, Stephen Wong, who retired from the company and quit the board in January. The company has also announced that Raj Sabhlok, former vice president of operations, has been promoted to the position of president and CEO.
Looking ahead, the company announced that it will launch major releases of its core database tool products in the second half of the year, as well as two new database-management products based on XML and the Eclipse open source tool set.
