Private equity giants Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group are making a joint bid for Duluth-based financial technology company NCR for more than $10 billion, Reuters reported Tuesday.
NCR has been under shareholder pressure to improve performance. The company under CEO Bill Nuti has been working to transform itself from a hardware-centric business that makes automated tellers and cash registers into more of a software and consulting company. But the transition hasn’t been smooth.
Reports of a possible buyout of the Fortune 500 company or undisclosed assets have followed NCR in recent months.
On Tuesday, an NCR spokesman declined to comment on “rumor or speculation.”
NCR shares were up about 11 percent at 2 p.m. Tuesday to about $35 per share.
In April, the Wall Street Journal reported NCR was exploring options, including selling assets, boosting its dividends or making other moves that might make its stock and balance sheet more appealing.
Last week, Nuti declined to comment about the company’s analysis of strategic alternatives or reports that it could put itself or major assets on the auction block. In the interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nuti said he is focused on transforming the company and its offerings into a powerhouse and becoming an end-to-end service for merchants and consumers.
He also discussed the company’s planned move from Duluth to a campus to be built in Midtown near Georgia Tech.
Nuti said creating a hub for about 4,000 technology workers in Atlanta is a “bold, ambitious” move, but that he is committed to ways to help keep more graduates — and their high-paying jobs — local. Nuti said about half of Georgia Tech’s engineering graduates leave the state for jobs in northern California, Boston, Austin, Seattle and elsewhere.
The purported Blackstone-Carlyle deal would include debt, Reuters reported Tuesday citing unnamed people. The news agency reported that a sale of NCR is several weeks from being finished.
Reuters reported that a sale to Blackstone-Carlyle isn’t assured and it is not clear NCR will sell itself.
Reuters reported other firms – among them Apollo Global Management and Thoma Bravo – are among the groups seeking to purchase NCR.
NCR officials have said the company was evaluating methods to return value to shareholders, including the possibility of selling assets, buying back shares or providing investors with new dividends.
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