By Faizan Farooque
Publication Date: 2025-12-08 11:56:00
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
IBM (IBM, Financials) is close to a deal to acquire Confluent for roughly $11 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, a move that would deepen the company’s push into cloud and data-infrastructure software. A formal announcement could come as soon as Monday, though neither company has commented.
Confluent’s platform processes massive streams of data in real time, technology used everywhere from banking systems to e-commerce traffic. The company has been exploring a sale since October, drawing interest from multiple potential buyers. Its market value sits near $8 billion.
For IBM, the deal would be another step in its effort to reenergize software growth after investors raised concerns about slowing cloud momentum earlier this year. The company has leaned more heavily on acquisitions, including last year’s $6.4 billion HashiCorp purchase, to strengthen its footing in AI-related cloud services.
The interest…
