Zoom won’t buy Five9 after all



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Five9 will remain independent – its agreement to be acquired by Zoom is canceled. While a press release from Five9 states that it was “terminated by mutual agreement,” it’s also true that Five9 shareholders rejected the $ 14.7 billion deal.

Zoom initially announced the acquisition on July 18. Five9 automates customer contact management for businesses, and the deal was supposed to strengthen Zoom’s business offerings. Its main competitors are behemoths like Microsoft and Google, and the deal is said to have helped the small business grow.

It was supposed to be an all-equity trade, but unfortunately for Zoom, its share price has lost over a quarter of its value since the acquisition was announced. Usually, when a company is bought, shareholders receive a premium over the price of their shares; because it was a deal on all stocks, however, Zoom would take over Five9 at discounted price.

Earlier this month, Institutional Shareholder Services, an independent proxy advisor, recommended that shareholders vote against the deal. The government also had a thing or two to say about possible national security risks, which probably didn’t help matters.

In a blog post published Thursday, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said the failure of the acquisition would not significantly affect Zoom’s plans. Five9 “was by no means essential to the success of our platform, nor was it the only way for us to offer our customers a compelling contact center solution,” he said. . Zoom plans to maintain its “long-standing partnerships” with Five9 and other companies offering similar services.

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