MariaDB shareholders approve private equity takeover

Majority of shareholders have chosen to support the K1 bid

Opensource database MariaDB, has received backing from its shareholders for a private equity takeover bid.

The MySQL fork, which lists Samsung, Nokia and ServiceNow among its clients, has recently been the subject of competing bids from private equity firm K1 Investment Management and application development and infrastructure company Progress Software.

According to The Register, the K1-led group announced it had "received irrevocable undertakings to accept the offer from around 68.5 percent of the existing MariaDB shares" in a recent SEC filing.

Back in February, K1 Investment Management made an unsolicited bid of £29.7 million (£0.43 per share) to take MariaDB private through its fund, K5 Private Investors. MariaDB's board said it was reviewing the offer and seeking advice at the time.

This proposal led one of MariaDB's lenders to warn that it could take control of the company's accounts due to the terms of its loan.

In March, Progress Software revealed it was considering a counteroffer of £0.47 per share, valuing MariaDB at approximately £31.9 million. Progress highlighted the value of MariaDB's relational database management products for customers needing a scalable, open-source solution backed by a reliable enterprise software company.

Despite the interest from Progress Software, the majority of shareholders have chosen to support the K1 bid.

MariaDB has faced financial difficulties over the past two years. After going public on the New York Stock Exchange in late 2022, the company announced job cuts in April 2023 and issued a "going concern" warning.

In October 2023, the company secured a £20.8 million loan facility but decided to end several strategic products and reduce its workforce by 28%. This included the surprising decision to discontinue its DBaaS service.

In December, MariaDB spun off its SkySQL DBaaS into a newly established cloud database company of the same name.