M&A  October 14, 2019

VMWare closes Carbon Black acquisition, affecting 120 Boulder employees

PALO ALTO, California and BOULDER  — VMWare Inc. (NYSE: VMW) closed its $2.1 billion acquisition of Carbon Black Inc. last Friday, meaning about 120 employees working out of a Pearl Street office in Boulder have a new employer.

In filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, VMWare said Carbon Black, which builds cloud security software, would form a new security business for the Palo Alto-based virtual computing company. The merger finished months ahead of schedule; VMWare previously said it expected the deal to close next January.

Carbon Black announced that it would open an office at 1433 Pearl St. in Boulder last September, citing tech anchors such as Google and Microsoft Inc. (Nasdaq: MSFT) as major attractors for skilled software engineers. It currently has around 120 employees, with space to hire 30 more or so.

In an emailed statement, a Carbon Black spokesman said the company will continue to operate in Boulder as it works on building its security code into VMWare’s programs.

A Colorado shareholder sued VMWare in federal court last month to stop the deal, but a judge dismissed the case last week.

This story has been updated to include comments from Carbon Black.

PALO ALTO, California and BOULDER  — VMWare Inc. (NYSE: VMW) closed its $2.1 billion acquisition of Carbon Black Inc. last Friday, meaning about 120 employees working out of a Pearl Street office in Boulder have a new employer.

In filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, VMWare said Carbon Black, which builds cloud security software, would form a new security business for the Palo Alto-based virtual computing company. The merger finished months ahead of schedule; VMWare previously said it expected the deal to close next January.

Carbon Black announced that it would open an office…

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
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