Intuit To Buy Email Marketing Firm Mailchimp For $12B: What You Need To Know

Financial software company Intuit Inc INTU has agreed to buy privately-held email marketing firm Mailchimp for $12 billion in cash and stock, a deal that would leverage on the growth of small and midsize businesses, the companies said on Monday.

What Happened: Intuit, which is known for supplying customers with TurboTax, QuickBooks and Credit Karma softwares, said it plans to finance the deal through cash on hand and new debt of about $4.5 billion to $5 billion. 

The deal also includes about $300 million of Mailchimp employee transaction bonuses that will be issued in the form of restricted stock units, expensed over three years.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of next year and lift Intuit’s fiscal 2022 earnings.

The Atlanta-based Mailchimp was founded in 2001 and began as a web design agency. It later shifted focus to email-marketing service, other digital-ad services and customer-relationship-management tools.  

Mailchimp is particularly popular among small businesses. As per The Wall Street Journal, it delivered $800 million in annual revenue last year.

See Also: Intuit Expected To Announce $7B Acquisition Of Credit Karma

Why It Matters: This would be Intuit’s largest deal ever. The company aims to offer more services to small businesses in the area of marketing and customer relationship management.

Intuit said it would enable businesses to do everything from setting up online stores and displaying advertisements to potential customers to invoicing clients and managing payroll.

“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,” said Alex Chriss, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Intuit Small Business and Self-Employed Group. 

Intuit, which has a market cap of over $152 billion,  said more than 7 million small and mid-size businesses already use QuickBooks.

Price Action: Intuit shares closed 1.76% lower at $557.42 on Monday and were up 0.5% in after hours trading.