UPDATED 11.4.16
Yesterday, Rackspace officially went private. It was removed from the New York Stock Exchange. The Apollo Global private-equity deal frees the company up to make big changes without the public repercussions of stock price swings. What those moves are, and what the future holds are still very much in question.
According to Rackspace CEO Taylor Rhodes, Apollo supports the business plan and the refocusing on core business. Rhodes' says the plan remains to grow into a leading support provider for the cloud, working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft' s Azure platform, and OpenStack, which Rackspace and Google co-developed. Here's part of CEO Taylor Rhodes' blog post yesterday:
Apollo strongly supports our strategy to grow Rackspace and expand the early leadership we’ve achieved in the fast-growing managed cloud industry. It embraces our unique workplace culture and our emphasis on providing customers with expertise and Fanatical Support for the world’s leading clouds, including various private clouds, dedicated servers, and public clouds powered by AWS, Microsoft Azure and OpenStack. Apollo is supportive of our management team continuing to lead the company.
Now they need people to know they are here to serve their clouds. In early October, the company launched a branding campaign nationwide in airports, on billboards and in major newspapers and magazines to make sure people know about the mission of Rackspace.
In talking to employees the new messaging "Rackspace - Your Clouds. Our Expertise" represents the first time the company has pushed a single consistent message across the board.
8.29.16
San Antonio's home grown Rackspace announced its $4.3 billion dollar pending sale Friday morning. The deal is expected to close later this year, waiting now only on the formal approval by stockholders.
But what do we know about the buyer Apollo Global Management? To answer that, TPR's Paul Flahive spoke with Michael Taylor a finance writer whose columns are found in the San Antonio Express-News, The Houston Chronicle and on his blog Bankers Anonymous.
