Cleary Gottlieb represented the underwriters, led by Citigroup Global Markets Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Lehman Brothers Inc., in VMware Inc.’s initial public offering of 37,950,000 shares of Class A common stock (including exercise of an over-allotment option), the largest technology sector IPO since Google went public in 2004. The offering priced on August 13 at $29 per share, valuing VMware at $11 billion; by close of the first day of trading on the NYSE, VMware was valued at nearly $20 billion, a market cap few other technology companies have exceeded. In the two weeks following pricing, VMware shares have traded as high as $73.95. The offering closed on August 17.
Prior to the IPO, VMware was wholly owned by EMC Corporation. EMC continues to own approximately 90% of VMware.
VMware is the leading provider of virtualization solutions, with a customer base that includes 100% of the Fortune 100 and more than 84% of the Fortune 1,000. VMware’s core virtualization technology enables multiple software applications and operating systems to share underlying hardware (such as a single server) safely by encapsulating each application and operating system in its own “virtual machine.” VMware’s suite of virtualization solutions addresses a range of complex IT problems that include infrastructure optimization, business continuity, software lifecycle management and desktop management.