Software company New Relic said Monday it plans to take the business private by selling to two private equity firms for $6.5 billion, or $87 a share. That’s a 17% premium over the stock’s closing price Friday.

New Relic develops software to help business clients manage their websites and gauge the performance of online services. It said Monday the buyers, Francisco Partners and TPG, will continue to operate New Relic.

“This change in ownership does not change our strategy,” CEO Bill Staples wrote in a note to New Relic clients Monday.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the sale will mean for New Relic’s employees in Portland and elsewhere. Last month, New Relic announced it would eliminate up to 255 jobs across the company — 10% of its workforce — in its third round of layoffs in many years as sales growth slowed and New Relic worked to reposition its business.

New Relic’s headquarters are in San Francisco, but it emerged as a major Portland technology employer a decade ago, basing its engineering team in several floors of the U.S. Bancorp Tower downtown. It had several hundred workers there in the years leading into the pandemic and its investment in developing its Portland software hub had a major role in reviving Portland’s technology community in the years after the Great Recession.

Like many tech companies, though, New Relic moved largely to hybrid and remote work during the pandemic and has significantly reduced its Portland real estate footprint.

It’s not clear how many people New Relic still employs in Portland. Managers of the U.S. Bancorp Tower said earlier this summer that just 600 people worked in the whole building, often called “Big Pink,” compared to about 3,000 before the pandemic.

It may be that many of the people who formerly worked in New Relic’s downtown office are still in Portland, working from their homes. The company didn’t respond to questions about its Portland operations Monday.

New Relic founder Lew Cirne (the company’s name is an anagram of his) developed a combative relationship with employees early in the pandemic as the business struggled to adapt to slower sales, a more competitive market and the renewed civil rights discourse that followed George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.

Cirne stepped down as CEO but remained the company’s chairman and still owns about 11% of the company’s stock. New Relic said Monday he will hold onto 40% of his shares after the sale to Francisco Partners and TPG closes late this year or early next year.

New Relic also reported financial results from its fiscal first quarter Monday. Sales totaled $242.6 million, up 12% from last year. New Relic lost $33.3 million, or 54 cents a share. That compares to a loss of $56.3 million, 76 cents a share, a year ago.

Reuters reported last spring that New Relic had been in talks with the two firms. Monday’s deal allows New Relic 45 days to shop the business in search of a better deal.