Intuit acquires Mailchimp for $12B

Intuit has announced they are acquiring Mailchimp for approximately $12 billion in cash and stock advances. Mailchimp is a global customer engagement and marketing platform for growing small and mid-market businesses. The acquisition of Mailchimp will help Intuit advance its mission of powering prosperity around the world, and its strategy to become an AI-driven expert platform. It will also accelerate two of Intuit's previously-shared strategic Big Bets: to become the center of small business growth; and to disrupt the small business mid-market.

Together, Intuit and Mailchimp will work to deliver on the vision of an innovative, end-to-end customer growth platform for small and mid-market businesses, allowing them to get their business online, market their business, manage customer relationships, benefit from insights and analytics, get paid, access capital, pay employees, optimize cash flow, be organized and stay compliant, with experts at their fingertips. Delivering on the promise to be the single source of truth, small and mid-market businesses will have the power to combine their customer data from Mailchimp and QuickBooks’ purchase data to get the actionable insights they need to grow and run their businesses with confidence.

Mailchimp brings to Intuit technology at scale along with global customer reach. Founded in Atlanta, GA in 2001, Mailchimp began by offering email marketing solutions and evolved into a global leader in customer engagement and marketing automation fueled by a powerful, cutting-edge AI-driven technology stack.

Both Intuit and Mailchimp have always worked to solve small and mid-market businesses’ biggest challenges. For two-thirds of small businesses, finding new customers is their biggest obstacle, and over 25 percent struggle to retain existing customers, yet almost three-quarters of small businesses have not adopted a customer relationship management solution. Eighty-four percent of small businesses use pen and paper or spreadsheets to reconcile their inventory across channels and 50 percent of small businesses fail within the first five years due in large part to cash flow challenges. Collectively these challenges create barriers to small and mid-market business success that Intuit’s acquisition of Mailchimp will help solve.

“We’re focused on powering prosperity around the world for consumers and small businesses. Together, Mailchimp and QuickBooks will help solve small and mid-market businesses’ biggest barriers to growth, getting and retaining customers. Expanding our platform to be at the center of small and mid-market business growth helps them overcome their most important financial challenges. Adding Mailchimp furthers our vision to provide an end-to-end customer growth platform to help our customers grow and run their businesses, putting the power of data in their hands to thrive,” said Sasan Goodarzi, CEO of Intuit. 

“Over the past two decades, we’ve vastly expanded and evolved Mailchimp’s platform to help millions of small businesses around the world start and grow. With Intuit, we’ve found a shared passion for empowering small businesses. By joining forces with Intuit, we’ll take our offerings to the next level, leveraging Intuit’s AI-driven expert platform to deliver even better products and services to small businesses. This is an exciting new chapter for Mailchimp, our 1,200+ dedicated employees, and customers,” said Ben Chestnut, CEO, and Co-founder of Mailchimp.

“Together, Mailchimp and QuickBooks will become a powerful engine for small and mid-market business customers to get, engage and retain their customers, run their businesses, optimize cash flow, and remain compliant. Today, QuickBooks helps more than 7 million small and mid-market businesses get paid fast, access capital, pay their employees, and grow in an omnichannel world. Mailchimp’s addition will bring speed and velocity to these efforts, with the acceleration of mid-market expansion opportunities and global growth for both brands," said Alex Chriss, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Intuit Small Business and Self-Employed Group.

Intuit acquires Mailchimp for approximately $12 billion

The transaction is expected to be accretive to Intuit’s non-GAAP earnings per share for full-year fiscal 2022. Intuit has agreed to pay total consideration of approximately $12 billion to acquire Mailchimp, subject to customary adjustments for transactions of this nature. The total consideration includes approximately $300 million of assumed Mailchimp employee transaction bonuses that will be issued in the form of restricted stock units, expensed over three years. The remaining consideration payable to Mailchimp’s equity holders will be payable in approximately equal parts of cash and Intuit common stock, with the shares of Intuit common stock being valued at $562.61 per share, calculated as the average of the daily volume-weighted average sales price per share for Intuit common stock for the five trading days ending on September 8, 2021. The per-share price of these shares has been fixed as of the signing date. The aggregate value of these shares will fluctuate based on changes in our share price between the signing date and the closing date.

Following the close of the transaction, Intuit will also issue $200 million of restricted stock units to Mailchimp employees, of which $140 million will be expensed over four years, and $60 million will be expensed over six months.

Intuit expects the cash consideration to be financed through cash on hand and new debt of approximately $4.5 billion to $5.0 billion. The transaction is not expected to have an impact on Intuit’s existing dividend and share repurchase principles. The transaction is expected to close prior to the end of Intuit’s second-quarter fiscal 2022, subject to receipt of required regulatory approvals and satisfaction or waiver of other customary closing conditions. To read the full report click here.