August 14, 2026
According to Reuters, private equity firm Silver Lake has held talks over the past several months to take Workday private and is prepared to pay up to $43 billion, which would rank among the largest software buyouts ever completed. CNBC reported that the news sent Workday shares as high as $220.50, up roughly 26% intraday, with trading halted multiple times for volatility before the stock closed at $206.45, up nearly 18% for its best day since 2016. That close valued the equity at about $51.1 billion, above the figure Reuters reported, which implies the market is pricing either a higher bid or a competing one. Talks are ongoing and there is no guarantee of a deal. Neither company commented.
The setup is a familiar one for sponsors. Workday generated $9.6 billion of revenue in fiscal 2025, up 13% from 16% the prior year, alongside $2.9 billion of operating cash flow, up 19%. Growth is decelerating while cash conversion holds, and the multiple has compressed to meet it: the stock was down roughly 15% this year and more than 40% below its 2024 peak on fears that AI-native entrants and agentic tools erode the seat-based subscription model. That combination of recurring revenue, high switching costs in HR and financial systems, real free cash flow, and a de-rated entry price is the textbook leveraged buyout profile.
The bigger read is what this would mean for the sector. Software take-privates largely stalled in 2026 because AI uncertainty made growth impossible to underwrite, leaving Hg's $6.4 billion OneStream deal and Thoma Bravo's $12.3 billion Dayforce acquisition as the year's marquee transactions. A Workday deal would be an order of magnitude larger and would signal that sponsors are again willing to price mature SaaS assets rather than wait out the disruption question. Size is the constraint, and Silver Lake has already shown how it clears one, having partnered with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners on the roughly $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts. Reuters reported the firm could again bring in additional investors here.
This matters for recruiting because it is a clean case study in LBO logic. Candidates should be able to explain why a decelerating but cash-generative subscription business is an attractive target, how the equity check gets syndicated across co-investors and sovereign wealth funds when a deal exceeds $40 billion, and why premiums are quoted against an unaffected share price rather than the post-leak level. It is also a live read-through: if this closes, every beaten-down mid-cap software name becomes a screen for the next take-private.