Broadcom could sell end-user computing unit to KKR for $3.8 billion

Chipmaker Broadcom could be looking to sell off its end-user computing business for $3.8 billion as part of its plans to divest non-core business units post its acquisition of VMware in November for $69 billion.

According to a Reuters report, global investment firm KKR has quoted a price of $3.8 billion for the business, outbidding other private equity players.

In December, Broadcom had said that it was looking to divest non-core parts of its business, including the end-user computing unit and another unit, named Carbon Black.

“Our strategy going forward is simply to enable global enterprises to run their applications across their data centers, as well as on public clouds by consuming VMWare’s higher-value software stack,” Hock Tan, president, and CEO at Broadcom, was quoted as saying in an earnings call transcript.

“And to track and keep these workloads across the environment, we are investing in a rich catalog of microservices tools. This will be our focus. And the noncore businesses of end-user computing and Carbon Black will be divested,” Tan added.  

When asked specifically about the reasons behind divesting the end-user computing and Carbon Black divisions acquired via the VMware deal, Tan had said that although both were good assets, the company didn’t want to be “distracted” by non-core parts of its business and focus on those divisions where it saw “the biggest value for its business model.”

“We’ll find good homes for them because there are a lot of very interested parties who are more than happy to take those assets. And we’ll be very, very thoughtful about where we put those assets eventually, simply because the customers of many of these two assets, are also the same customers to the VMware Cloud Foundation,” Tan said.

During the same call, chief financial officer Kirsten Spears indicated that both end-user computing and Carbon Black jointly contribute close to $2 billion in revenue on an annual basis.

KKR, on the other hand, has a huge portfolio of investments in the IT sector.

Last year, in October, the company announced the close of its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund III — an approximately $3 billion fund focused on investing in leading growth technology companies across North America, Europe, and Israel.

The investment firm said it has invested over $21.6 billion in related investments since 2014 and built a dedicated global team of more than 35 investment professionals with deep technology growth equity expertise.

The firm has executed several transactions in its tech growth strategy, including DarkTrace, KnowBe4, 09, Onestream, OutSystems, NetSPI, and Restaurant365.

Other notable transactions in the sector include BMC, Ensono, and Contabo.

The end-user computing deal will see Evercore, Deutsche Bank, and Jefferies advising KKR on the transaction, sources told Reuters, adding that Citigroup was advising Broadcom for the deal. UBS Group, Jefferies, and KKR’s capital market unit are reportedly providing debt financing for the deal.