Qualtrics files for IPO two years after sale to SAP

Qualtrics International Inc. filed for what could be one of the first US initial public offerings of 2021, just over two years after it was acquired by German software giant SAP SE.

Silver Lake to invest $550 million in a private placement (Bloomberg)

Qualtrics, which makes customer-survey software, said in a filing Monday it plans to sell an undetermined number of shares for $20 to $24 each. 

Its paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission listed a placeholder amount of $100 million, which will likely change once it sets the amount of stock that it plans to market.

SAP agreed to pay $8 billion for Qualtrics in November 2018 in its biggest ever deal, in an effort to compete with rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc.

Qualtrics revealed in the filing that investment firm Silver Lake agreed on Dec. 23 to buy $550 million of shares of its Class A common stock in a private placement, including $225 million in stock at the IPO price and the rest at $21.64 per share.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are leading the listing. Qualtrics plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker XM.

By Katie Roof