HOUSTON, Sept. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Attachmate Group, a privately-held software holding company owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital, Elliott Management and Thoma Bravo, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Micro Focus. The transaction is expected to close on November 3, 2014. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including Micro Focus shareholder approvals and regulatory approvals under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

The Attachmate Group and Micro Focus are two well-established enterprise software companies with distinguished track records in helping organizations maximize the value of their IT infrastructure software.  The resulting global entity will operate in all significant international markets, have $1.4B in annual revenue and deliver market-leading products in many technology segments and capabilities across the full end-to-end software stack of infrastructure software.

"This merger between the Attachmate Group and Micro Focus will result in a greater breadth of solutions, extensive global presence, and significant financial strength," said Jeff Hawn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Attachmate Group. "The combined company will be even better able to help customers address their business and IT challenges in light of increasing complexity, change and risk."

The Attachmate Group brands – Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE – offer a broad range of complementary solutions spanning IT operations management; Linux and open source solutions; file and networking services, collaboration and endpoint management; host connectivity and legacy modernization; identity and access management and security; workload management and cloud computing; and more.

"This is an exciting time for the Attachmate Group and Micro Focus organizations, our customer bases, shareholders and employees," said Kevin Loosemore, Executive Chairman, Micro Focus. "We have tremendous respect for the Attachmate Group and its portfolio of software brands. The scale and depth of these businesses will further our mission of helping customers both preserve business logic and data while exploiting cloud, mobility and other IT trends on a global basis."

To learn more about the Attachmate Group and its portfolio, visit http://www.attachmategroup.com. 

About Micro Focus

Micro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernization, Testing and Management software enables customers' business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk. For additional information please visit www.microfocus.com.

About The Attachmate Group

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, The Attachmate Group is a privately-held software holding company, comprising distinct IT brands dedicated to the long-term success of our customers. We deliver enterprise solutions to extend, manage and secure increasingly complex IT environments. Principal holdings include Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell and SUSE.

Copyright© 2014 The Attachmate Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Attachmate and the Attachmate logo are registered trademarks of the Attachmate Corporation. NetIQ and the NetIQ logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetIQ Corporation. Novell, the Novell logo, SUSE and the SUSE logo are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. All other trademarks, trade names, or company names referenced herein are used for identification only and are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT:
Amy Sachrison
For The Attachmate Group
amy.sachrison@netiq.com
713-418-5368

SOURCE The Attachmate Group