Marcel LUX III SARL (Marcel) as the largest shareholder in SUSE is planning to take the company private and delist it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. SUSE will be merged with an unlisted Luxembourg entity. Marcel currently owns a 79% stake in SUSE.

SUSE.com press release

  • bahmanm@lemmy.mlEnglish
    64·
    2 years ago

    I wonder what would that mean for openSUSE, given that, apparently, an equity firm is making decisions on behalf of the SUSE board 😞

    • angrymouse@lemmy.world
      44·
      2 years ago

      I know nothing about this firm and the suse board (that seems to agree with the plan) but normally is great for companies to not be listed in stock market, usually the market put much pressure in short term profit and does not care about long term sustainability.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
      17·
      2 years ago

      Hopefully nothing too drastic, but also according to the article they were only publicly traded from 2021 to now, so for most of their existence they were in private hands anyway, albeit being passed around a fair bit.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
      16·
      2 years ago

      I wonder what would that mean for openSUSE

      Nothing. The oS maintainers put safeguards in place. At worst they would need to come up with a new name because of trademarks. openSUSE is sponsored by other companies than just SUSE. That doesn’t go just away.

    • NaN@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      141·
      2 years ago

      SUSE was already private under an equity firm until 2021 (EQT). Probably fine.

      • EvilColeslaw@beehaw.orgEnglish
        5·
        2 years ago

        From what I’ve read this Marcel LUX III SARL company is also just a holding company under EQT. So nothing major has changed there.

    • jollyrogue@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 years ago

      That’s a good question, and who is the mysterious 3rd party SUSE is going to be merged with?

      Debian is looking better and better everyday.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    32·
    2 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The SUSE organization has changed hands many times over the years… From being its own independent company to the notable acquisition by Novell two decades ago.

    Over the past decade SUSE has changed hands between Attachmate, Micro Focus, EQT Partners, and then went public back in 2021 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

    Marcel LUX III SARL (Marcel) as the largest shareholder in SUSE is planning to take the company private and delist it from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

    In taking SUSE private, the EQT Private Equity / Marcel is offering a ~16 EUR per share price, around a 67% premium over today’s share price.

    "SUSE’s Management Board and Supervisory Board support the strategic opportunity from delisting of the company as it will allow SUSE to focus fully on its operational priorities and execution of its long-term strategy.

    The interim dividend will be paid to all shareholders prior to the settlement of the Offer and will allow Marcel to finance its purchase of SUSE shares under the Offer and certain transaction costs incurred by it."

    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Southern Wolf@pawb.social
      71·
      2 years ago

      Good bot!

      Also, I’d argue this is a good step forward for Suse, as it will take a lot of shareholder pressure off of them.

  • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
    311·
    2 years ago

    It doesn’t make automatically a good news, for example there’s a billionaire who took private ownership of an once famous social network and ran it to the ground completely annihilating its purpose

  • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
    24·
    2 years ago

    Huh, this could be a good thing, stop them from being a target for shorts and free them from the typical pattern. But now it totally depends on whether the private owners suck or not. Let’s hope for the best!

    • Shareni@programming.dev
      6·
      2 years ago

      Let’s remember a time when Suse was owned by Nowell. Suse “admited” to Linux infringing on Microsoft’s patents in order to screw over redhat, and that allowed MS to continuously harras the entire Linux community for like a decade.

  • makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml
    151·
    2 years ago

    If they’re public, they have huge pressure. If not, they can play their own game with a specific strategy that a shareholder might not like. So this could well be a good thing. Public trading usually leads to enshitification.

    • flashgnash@lemm.ee
      2·
      2 years ago

      That being the reason why valve are able to produce quality over quantity

      Used to think the same about LTT though

    • JonnyRobbie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      2 years ago

      I would be cautiously optimistic. If they are public, the the top tier entity is the shareholders which usually don’t look further then their dividends and so public company usually focuses on short term growth. Public company doesn’t need to bend backwards towards committee of millions of shareholders and can focus on long term as it wants and deems fit, usually preferring long term investment. Of course it can go the other way too. When they are not responsible to shareholders, theres a possibility that the it gets squeezed end enshitified waaaay faster.

  • danielfgom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 years ago

    This is good news 😀. It’s always better to have a privately owned firm where there is no pressure to contrastingly make more money every year. They’ll be able to focus on providing the best systems and support rather than how much money they can make for the shareholders. 👍

    • EvilColeslaw@beehaw.org
      8·
      2 years ago

      I mean, Canonical is also privately held and not publicly listed. And it looks like this is the same private equity firm that owned SUSE fully before taking them public. (Marcel LUX III SARL is a holding company owned by EQT Private Equity.)

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
        2·
        2 years ago

        Canonical is also privately held and not publicly listed.

        For sure. The difference is in who the owner is and what their track record in regards to FOSS is. Putting the 19 years of BDFL’s Canonical ownership together, I think he’s generally been okay. The core products have always been open source and free for both commercial and non-commercial use. I don’t know much about the private equity firm currently holding SUSE.

        And it looks like this is the same private equity firm that owned SUSE fully before taking them public. (Marcel LUX III SARL is a holding company owned by EQT Private Equity.)

        I guess that’s a positive, but we really don’t know what direction they’d take once the curtains close. Chances are profit maximization will be at the top of the list. It’s unknown how that will translate in reality in the short and long term. E.g. would they be nice and give stuff for free early to steal customers from RHEL, tightening down the road, or cutting costs today to make a buck now. It’s anyone’s guess.

        • andruid@lemmy.ml
          9·
          2 years ago

          | the core products have been open source

          They have been pushing more of the distribution into their proprietary app store format despite what the community says about it