LogMeIn got the approval of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for its proposed $1.8 billion acquisition of Citrix Systems’ GoTo family of online communications products.
LogMeIn officials said Sept. 26 that the FTC decided to cut short the waiting period of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act for LogMeIn’s bid for Citrix’s GetGo subsidiary, which was created when the two companies announced the deal and comprises the GoTo family of products. The early termination removes a key obstacle to the deal, though LogMeIn still needs to clear other hurdles, including getting approval from shareholders of both companies.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017.
LogMeIn officials hope the combination of the GoTo products—which include such offerings as GoToMeeting, GoToAssist, GoToMyPC, Grasshopper and OpenVoice—with its own portfolio will create a larger and more competitive player in the business communications space.
LogMeIn is best known for products that enable users and businesses to access company systems remotely. Some of those products are LogMeIn Rescue, BoldChat, LastPass and join.me. The combined company will have more than $1 billion in revenue, almost 3,000 employees and more than 2 million customers worldwide.
In a letter to customers July 26, LogMeIn President and CEO Bill Wagner wrote that “the GoTo and LogMeIn combination will be poised to disrupt and redefine the collaboration, engagement, identity and access management markets for our customers.”
The collaboration space is already undergoing disruption due to such trends as an increasingly mobile workforce, the proliferation of mobile and connected devices, the internet of things (IoT) and the cloud. The market is continuing to consolidate through acquisitions, and vendors are changing their business models and reviewing their options as they look to better compete with stalwarts Cisco Systems and Microsoft.
Citrix has been under pressure since last year by activist investor Elliott Management to restructure its business and return more money to shareholders. When Mark Templeton retired as president and CEO a year ago, the company also said it was reviewing the future of the GoTo business. A few months later, the company announced it planned to spin out the business and create a new company. The deal with LogMeIn takes that plan off the table.
In January, Citrix appointed Microsoft veteran Kirill Tatarinov as president and CEO.