Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of Local Tech Wire and business editor of WRAL.com.
CARY, N.C. – What’s really worth? Jim Goodnight put a price on the world’s largest privately held software company – perhaps facetiously and certainly keeping in line with previous comments that he just doesn’t want to sell.
In an of Business Week, Goodnight said the inquiries about acquiring SAS continue as consolidation sweeps through the business intelligence sector.
"I’ve been asked by two major companies if we’d sell, and I said, ‘Yes, for $20 billion,’" Goodnight said.
The company’s real worth? Between $10 billion and $12 billion, he told the magazine. The $20 billion total would be quite a premium – nearly 10 times the firm’s annual revenues.
Besides, Goodnight said, he wouldn’t want to see SAS employees pay the price for a sellout.
"I have a lot of respect for the people who work at SAS. I don’t want to see them get laid off because the company gets acquired,” he said.
The Business Week story was not as in depth as a recent New York Times report in which one analyst called SAS in the views of competitors.
However, Goodnight did tell Business Week that the company’s 32-year streak of increasing revenues is likely to end this year. Sales will be “unchanged” from 2008 at $2.26 billion, Goodnight said.
At a recent media day, Goodnight held out hope for
According to Business Week, revenues at SAS competitors SAP and Oracle will decline this year with SAS expected to see sales fall by 8 percent.
SAS still remains very profitable, however, and Goodnight disdained what critics on Wall Street might have to say about the firm’s financials.
At a Silicon Valley speech, Goodnight said: "We’re still making a lot of money this year. Why should I lay off 3,000 people so we can say our profits went up?" he said. "I’m not going to listen to a bunch of 28-year-old kids on Wall Street telling you what your profit should be down to the penny."
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