Nutanix Purchase Price For PernixData Revealed?

Nutanix has released an update to its S-1 again, and buried in the details is this little tidbit:

> On August 5, 2016, the Company entered into a stock purchase agreement to purchase all shares outstanding of a technology company in exchange for 528,517 shares of the Company’s common stock and $1.2 million in cash. The closing of the acquisition is subject to standard closing conditions.

The acquisition target is widely-rumoured to be PernixData has taken in $62 million in funding since being founded in 2012.

The S-1 has the unaudited Black-Scholes fair value of the common stock at $14.37 each, which places the acquisition value at $9.7 million. This purchase price would represent merely 15.64% of the funding received.

Not a great return on investment in anyone's language.

I contacted both companies, and they're not saying anything, which is not unexpected. PernixData said that, since it was Nutanix's S-1, I should talk to them. A Nutanix spokesperson simply said “We can’t comment on the S-1.”

Also of interest in the S-1 is that Nutanix CFO Duston M. Williams elected not to exercise his considerable stock options within 60 days of 30 April 2016 and no longer appears on the list of principal stockholders. His position on the ownership list has been taken by President Sudeesh Nair who now lays claim to nearly 1.5% of the company's stock, though much of this is once again in the form of options, which are exercisable within 60 days of 30 June 2016.

Why Mr. Williams decided not to exercise his options is anyone's guess, since the company isn't commenting on that either, alas.

This article first appeared in Forbes.com here.