{"id":42732,"date":"2022-01-24T12:43:53","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T12:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=0e000f102339e99ca86a44656f0b14b7"},"modified":"2022-01-24T12:43:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T12:43:53","slug":"ibm-to-sell-off-watson-health-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/ibm-to-sell-off-watson-health-assets\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM to sell off Watson Health assets"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Sabina Weston<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
24 Jan, 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

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IBM has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Watson Health assets to private equity firm\u00a0Francisco Partners<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, will allow IBM to focus on its platform-based hybrid cloud and\u00a0artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a>\u00a0strategy, according to the tech giant\u2019s SVP Tom Rosamilia.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIBM remains committed to Watson, our broader AI business, and to the clients and partners we support in healthcare IT. Through this transaction, Francisco Partners acquires data and analytics assets that will benefit from the enhanced investment and expertise of a healthcare industry focused portfolio,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

Terms of the deal were not announced, but\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reports\u00a0that the value of the assets being sold is more than $1 billion.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1999, Francisco Partners specialises in investing in tech companies, including businesses within the healthcare sector.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the acquisition, Francisco Partners co-president Ezra Perlman said that the San Francisco-based private equity firm has followed IBM\u2019s journey in healthcare data and analytics for a number of years and has \u201ca deep appreciation for its portfolio of innovative healthcare products\u201d.<\/p>\n

Principal Justin Chen added that Francisco Partners looks forward to \u201csupporting the talented employees and management team\u201d, which is expected to continue in similar roles in the new standalone company with a \u201cfocus on growth opportunities to realise its full potential, and delivering enhanced value to customers and partners\u201d.<\/p>\n

The sale of the healthcare data and analytics unit comes amidst the\u00a0wave of investments in healthcare technology<\/a>\u00a0fuelled by the pandemic. For instance,\u00a0Oracle<\/a>\u00a0recently\u00a0acquired the digital medical records business Cerner<\/a>\u00a0for $28.3 billion (\u00a321.4 billion), with plans to use the company as an anchor asset into the healthcare sector.<\/p>\n

IBM\u2019s focus on AI and\u00a0cloud<\/a>\u00a0growth was cemented in October 2020, when it\u00a0announced the split<\/a>\u00a0from its Managed Infrastructure Services business, now known as\u00a0Kyndryl<\/a>, in what is now known as one of the\u00a0most significant tech industry moves of that year<\/a>. At the 2020\u00a0Think Digital virtual conference<\/a>, CEO Arvind Krishna said that \u201cevery company will become an AI company, not because they can, but because they must\u201d.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sabina Weston<\/p>\n

24 Jan, 2022 <\/p>\n

IBM has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Watson Health assets to private equity firm\u00a0Francisco Partners.
\nThe deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42733,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42732\/revisions\/42733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}