Quest Software has received an improved bid from Dell to acquire the enterprise management software vendor for about $2.32bn.
Quest Software said in a statement that the company has received an improved offer of $27.50 per share in cash from a strategic bidder, without revealing the name of the company.
Two bidders are in the race to acquire Quest Software including buyout group led by private investment firm Insight Venture Partners, and an undisclosed bidder.
Acccording to Reuters the mystery bidder is Dell which has offered a superior bid to acquire Quest.
The company’s board deemed that the latest proposal from the strategic bidder constitutes a superior proposal beating an earlier bid of about $2.17bn or $25.75 a share from the affiliates of Insight Venture Management and and Vector Capital.
The bidding war between Dell and Insight Venture began when the latter originally inked a merger deal for Quest back on 8 March, 2012 which was later amended on 19 June, 2012.
In the second week of June, Dell had offered $25.50 per share for Quest, valuing the deal at $2.15bn.
Quest had revenues of $857m in 2011 and sells its products and services through its direct sales organisation as well as through a variety of partners and resellers worldwide.
Dell is trying to boost its revenue and profits by foraying into data storage, security and networking technologies business and acquistion of Quest is expected expand company’s footprint in software market.
