Confluent stock skyrockets 29% as IBM announces $11 billion acquisition deal

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CNBC Finance

Dec 08, 2025

2 min read

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Key Points
  • IBM said it is acquiring Confluent in a deal worth $11 billion.
  • The addition of Confluence will strengthen IBM's artificial intelligence portfolio.
  • IBM will pay $31 per share in cash for all of the issued and outstanding common shares of the company.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna speaks at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, on March 11, 2025.
Andy Wenstrand | Sxsw Conference & Festivals | Getty Images

IBM announced Monday that it is acquiring data streaming platform Confluent in a deal worth $11 billion.

Shares of Confluent soared 29% premarket. IBM stock sank about 1%.

IBM will pay $31 per share in cash for all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent, according to a release. The transaction is expected to close by the middle of 2026. Shares of Confluent closed at $23.14 on Friday.

"With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI," IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a release.

Tune in at 10 a.m. ET as IBM CEO Arvind Krishna joins CNBC TV to discuss the deal. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.

IBM said the deal will bolster its artificial intelligence offerings as it expects global data growth to more than double by 2028.

The addition of Confluent fits with IBM's deal last year to land cloud software maker HashiCorp for $6.4 billion and the 2023 move to acquire Apptio in a deal worth $4.6 billion. Both of those acquisitions were all-cash deals.

Confluent has more than 6,500 clients across major industries and works with Anthropic, Amazon's AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft, Snowflake and others.

Confluent one-day stock chart.
Source: CNBC Finance

Published

December 08, 2025

Monday at 1:29 PM

Reading Time

2 minutes

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