Centerbridge Plans to Acquire IBM Marketing and Commerce Assets

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Over the course of IBM’s more than 100-year history, we have continuously transformed to meet the evolving needs of our clients.

Today the company is squarely focused on the emerging, high-value segments of the IT industry and accelerating our leadership in artificial intelligence (AI), hybrid cloud, SaaS, blockchain and supply chain, among other strategic technologies.

In particular, our focus on supply chain – from order management to operating supply chain networks – has become a priority. We know that the supply chain is ripe for applying disruptive emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) to improve automation, visibility, operations, and performance. And it is here that we will focus our investment going forward to create leading-edge innovation.

At the same time, our clients derive great value from our marketing and commerce offerings. Therefore, we have decided it is time to entrust these solutions and capabilities to a new entity that can continue to infuse them with investment to propel further innovation.

Today, IBM and Centerbridge Partners L.P. announced a definitive agreement in which Centerbridge plans to acquire IBM’s marketing platform and commerce software offerings, including the associated leadership, talent, and technology that power these offerings. After regulatory approval and transaction closing, Centerbridge will unveil a new name and brand identity.

After numerous and lengthy conversations and serious consideration and consultation, we were convinced that Centerbridge shared our vision for the future of these offerings — including the importance of harnessing the expertise of our team by retaining the leaders and people who currently make these products so powerful.

To put it simply, we all have the same goal: to continue to advance these marketing and commerce-related offerings to help our clients transform their customers’ experience. Moving forward, IBM will partner with Centerbridge on cloud and AI to further help our customers transform in the new era of technology.

This strategy was also reflected in our announcement last December to divest a number of our marketing and commerce offerings to HCL. Both of these divestiture decisions were made with our clients’ businesses at the core of the discussions. Each set of offerings was matched with the future owners based on their strengths and the offering’s potential to succeed and flourish through their oversight and backing.

To our clients and partners – I want to assure you that we will work closely with you, HCL and Centerbridge to ensure a smooth transition for everyone. We are confident that HCL and Centerbridge are the right providers for their respective offerings and we look forward to seeing the products’ market leadership positions continue and expand.