Hands up if you’ve not heard of Corel before. Does the company sound vaguely familiar? Founded in the 1980s, this is a company that is well past its glory days. Corel used to be a well-known brand in the PC era with products such as Corel Draw and WinZip.Perhaps one of its most notable products is WordPerfect, a word processing software (that’s such an ancient word now) that reigned long before the emergence of Microsoft Word. Its primary competitor back then was WordStar.
Today, it’s more known for its Parallels virtualisation software, which it bought earlier this year.
Well, Corel and its new products and other assets have just changed ownership. Private equity firm KKR has bought the Canadian company from Vector Capital, another private equity firm for a reported US$1 billion plus.
“KKR looks forward to working together with management to drive continued growth across its existing platforms while leveraging the team’s extensive experience in M&A to deliver a new chapter of innovation and growth on a global scale,” John Park, Member of KKR, said in a statement.
Entelechy Asia 