Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the OpenText Corporation conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, simply press star then one on your touchtone phone. Anyone who needs assistance during the conference call may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Harry Blount, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. With me on the call today are OpenText's Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Mark J. Barrenechea, and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Madhu Ranganathan. We have some prepared remarks followed by a question-and-answer session. Today's call will last approximately 45 minutes and is being recorded with a replay available shortly thereafter. I'd like to take a moment and direct investors to the investor relations section of our website, investors.opentext.com, where we posted a link to the offer landing page, which consists of additional information related to the offer, including our investor presentation and replay of today's call. Now I'll proceed with the reading of our safe harbor statement. Please note that during the course of this conference call, we may make statements relating to the offer, the proposed acquisition, and the future performance of OpenText that contain forward-looking information.
While these forward-looking statements represent our current expectations and projections, actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking statements made today. Certain material factors and assumptions were applied in drawing any such statement. Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from a conclusion, forecast, or projection in the forward-looking information, as well as risk factors that may impact future performance results of OpenText are contained in OpenText recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q, as well as in our press release that was distributed earlier today, which may be found on our website. We undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements unless required to do so by law. In addition, our conference call may include discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures.
Reconciliations of any of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures may be found within our public filings and other materials which are available on our website. Reconciliations of Micro Focus non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable IFRS measures may be found within the Micro Focus public filings and other materials that are available on its website as referenced in the investor materials. With that, I will hand the call over to Mark.
Thank you, Harry, and welcome everyone to today's call. It's great to be in our Richmond Hill office. Before I get into the details of our intention to acquire Micro Focus, I want to start with our industrial thesis and why today is a really important moment in our 32-year young history as we build an even stronger future for our company. The world is increasingly getting more complex, and there is an urgent imperative to accelerate digital transformations. The complexity is obvious and ubiquitous. Supply chains, cybersecurity, trust, inflation, talent and labor challenges, the ongoing pandemic, geopolitical unrest, and climate issues all around us. The imperative is crystal clear. IDC reports over $6 trillion in business investment for digital technologies and transformations through 2024. McKinsey reports over $1 trillion in business value to be unlocked through cloud adoption.
Gartner citing 75% of executives are held back from their IT transformation plans due to labor shortages. IDC notes a staggering 11 stakeholders involved to approve a technology buying decision increasing. Digital transformation is the largest technology opportunity in the history of our industry. It entails extreme automation and the digitalization of all business. Operating in the cloud, running at global scale, eliminating friction from processes, the modernization of applications, accelerated time to value, and doing this with trust and doing this responsibly. Customers need to gain the information advantage, as we like to say, not just a process advantage. Let's be frank. This end-to-end digitalization of all corporate operations is the only answer, and customers are looking for companies with proven reputations of innovation, delivered outcomes, trust, global abilities, and staying power. They are looking for companies like OpenText.
There has to be a better way to achieve digital transformation, and we believe OpenText has a big role to play in being the market leader in information management solutions for our customers and partners. With today's announcement, information management just got a lot bigger, and OpenText is ready to step up to this opportunity on all fronts. This transaction will create one of the largest global cloud and software companies in the world. The expertise, financial strength, and scale of the combined business will accelerate our existing plans in product development, cloud transition, global 10-K coverage, and improvement of our business.
Customers will also have access to an enhanced broad product portfolio and will accelerate their digital transformation agendas and give them greater flexibility and choice. For employees, it means being part of a market-leading cloud and software business committed to innovation with the prospect of benefiting from new opportunities within the enlarged group. For Micro Focus shareholders, certainty and the opportunity to crystallize in cash the value of their investments today at a significant premium. For OpenText shareholders, future value creation on a combined revenue scale, cloud revenue acceleration, upper-quartile EBITDA dollars, and upper-quartile free cash flow growth. Some facts about Micro Focus. $ 2.7 billion of trailing twelve-month revenues for the period ending April 2022. $ 942 million of adjusted EBITDA or 35.3% on the same TTM basis.
A market leader in digital management as reported by Forrester and Gartner and IDC. Marquee enterprise customers and global 10,000 across all major industries. 11,000 employees. Headquartered in Newbury, U.K., near the OpenText Center of Excellence in Reading, U.K.. Strong ARR of 69%+, and they're focused in high value information areas across a wide selection of buyers. Information management and governance, information data protection and cyber resilience, information technology and service operations and management, application modernization, connectivity and delivery, and information analytics with Vertica. Here are some of the terms of the acquisition, and the numbers are approximate. $6 billion acquisition price inclusive of Micro Focus' cash and debt. On a multiple basis, that's 2.2x revenue and 6.3x adjusted EBITDA.
It's an all-cash consideration to be funded by $4.6 billion in new debt, $1.3 billion in cash, and a $600 million draw on our existing revolver credit facility. We do not intend to use equity. We're targeting Micro Focus to be on the OpenText operating model within six quarters of closing, and we expect to close the transition in the first quarter of calendar 2023, subject to the satisfaction or, where applicable, waiver of the conditions set out in appendix one to the announcement. We know the Micro Focus business well. We've observed it for many years. Under Steve, Stephen Murdoch's leadership and the leadership team, the business is on a stronger path with line of sight to stabilization. They've done a great job.
With stabilization in view, we believe we can help accelerate this and then return the business to growth faster. We believe it's the right time. OpenText is executing well. Our cloud has scaled. We have gained amazing experience in digital transformations and delivered strong results through transformative acquisitions such as GXS, Documentum and Carbonite, and we're in a strong financial position. This is the right company and right opportunity with amazing products, strong talent, marquee customers and valued intellectual property in a business that can gain value from the OpenText business system and accelerating their plans in the following areas. The cloud, both public, private and API with our know-how and platform. Reaching their full potential in customer support and maintenance practices and results. Reaching their full potential in go-to-market and access to an SMB channel and stronger partnerships with market leaders.
Even stronger operating results across many areas, including gross margin, EBITDA and EBITDA to cash flow conversion. The combined business would be enhancing our leadership across a TAM of $170 billion, focused on strategic information management domains and significantly broadening our touch points and buyer groups. On slide seven and 10 of our investor deck, you will see deeper insights into the functional domains from content to security to applications, and deeper insights in the expanded buyer groups from supply chain to business operations to tech operations. Let's look at the combined business. 25,000 employees and experts strong. $6.2 billion in total revenues. Line of sight to $400 million of cost synergies. Upper quartile adjusted EBITDA dollars of $2.2 billion and expanding. OpenText adjusted EBITDA dollars in FY 2022 were $1.3 billion.
For Micro Focus trailing twelve months, $942 million. Upper quartile free cash flows and expanding. OpenText free cash flows in 2022 were $889 million, and Micro Focus trailing twelve months, $292 million. We're maintaining our FY 2025 aspirations of adjusted EBITDA margins for the combined group between 37%-39%. The transaction would be immediately accretive to adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. With the OpenText business system, identified cost synergies and upper quartile margins, this is a powerful cash generation company and the class of the best run technology companies in the world. Let me spend a moment on three of the larger opportunity areas, cloud renewals and innovation acceleration. On the cloud. OpenText is operating very well and growing.
Over the last several years, we have uplifted over 3,000 customers from off cloud to private cloud, introduced our public cloud and created a developer API cloud. We posted double-digit cloud bookings in fiscal 2022, and as we mentioned on our earnings call just a few weeks ago, we expect to continue to generate enterprise cloud bookings growth of 15% or better through fiscal 2025. Our cloud and professional services teams are delivering strong results, and we believe these same processes and expertise can be applied to uplift Micro Focus' customers to the cloud as well. Renewals. Over the last few years, OpenText has transformed its maintenance business to a customer support business with many value-added offerings and services, including security, premium and extended support. We see a very similar opportunity to add enhancements to Micro Focus maintenance business.
The third area I wanna talk about is innovation acceleration. Over the last few years, OpenText has brought its products into the cloud, and we announced Titanium, the next evolution of the OpenText cloud, to expand capabilities and further reduce friction for customers. We see an opportunity to continue the journey Micro Focus has been on to bring all of their high-value products to the cloud and leverage Titanium. Before I turn the call over to Madhu, let me speak to the key commitments we are making to our shareholders upon closing. Return Micro Focus to organic total growth. Uplift Micro Focus customers to the cloud and accelerate organic cloud growth. Improve the renewals business. Leverage our proven OpenText business system to drive an accretive integration.
Upper quartile adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA expansion, and we're maintaining our FY 2025 aspirations of adjusted EBITDA margins between 37%-39%. Upper quartile free cash flows and free cash flow expansion. We rapidly delivered deleveraged with GXS, Documentum, and Carbonite, and we have a well-chronicled and proven track record. We plan on getting below 3x leverage in eight quarters after close, and we'll provide you with quarterly visibility and tracking. Our dividend program to continue. A transparent integration framework with quarterly visibility and tracking, and we'll use this opportunity to provide enhanced visibility into our value business areas, learning from the best technology companies. We'll provide a financial model and projections after we close. At the appropriate point in time, I look forward to welcoming the amazing Micro Focus employees, partners, and customers to OpenText.
I wanna take a moment to acknowledge and thank the Micro Focus board and leadership, Greg Lock, their Chair, Stephen Murdoch, their CEO, and Matt Ashley, their CFO, and the rest of Micro Focus's management team and employees for their incredible efforts towards the transformation of their business, and we look forward to the partnership ahead. May the one that brings peace bring peace for all. With that, let me turn the call over to Madhu. Madhu?
Thank you, Mark, and thank you all for joining us today. During our last earnings call in early August, we presented to you the OpenText fiscal 2023 total growth strategy model and fiscal 2025 aspirations. As I recall, our fiscal 2023 total growth strategy included enterprise cloud bookings growth of 15%+ and total cloud revenues up 6%-8% in constant currency. Our fiscal 2025 aspiration, specifically enterprise cloud bookings of 15%+, organic revenue growth of 2%-4%, led by cloud organic growth of 6%-8%. ARR, annual recurring revenue, of 85% of total revenues, adjusted EBITDA margin of 37%-39%, and free cash flows of $1.1 billion+. Today's announcement does not change our core plan. We remain confident to the strength of our targets, our aspirations, and execution framework.
As we speak about the Micro Focus announcement, incredible efforts to date by the Micro Focus team towards strengthening and transforming the business is appreciated by OpenText, and we look forward to our partnership ahead. Now, let me walk through the financial highlights and opportunities relating to Micro Focus. Our press release and investor presentation references pro forma financial information and provided to us by Micro Focus, which is unaudited. This pro forma information represents Micro Focus results for the trailing twelve-month period ended April 30th, 2022, and excludes the results of Digital Safe, which was divested by Micro Focus during this period. We will provide the complete financial outlook and related disclosures upon closing of the transaction, which we expect in the first calendar quarter of 2023. Mark shared in his prepared remarks transaction highlights and our financing structures.
Our source of financing assumes that we do not have full operational use of Micro Focus cash at closing, primarily due to timing, and also includes fees and transaction-related costs. We have received strong support and commitments on our financing, and we do not contemplate raising any equity to fund the acquisition. Let me talk about revenue. Micro Focus reported $2.9 billion for the fiscal year ended October 31st, 2021, and today we are providing from Micro Focus trailing twelve months ended April 30th, 2022, of $2.7 billion. As Mark outlined in his remarks, we expect to accelerate stabilization and return Micro Focus to total revenue organic growth. On adjusted EBITDA, Micro Focus has strong adjusted EBITDA at 35.3% for the trailing twelve months ended April 30th, 2022.
With the application of the OpenText business system upon closing and effective integration, we believe will result in EBITDA expansion. We expect to have Micro Focus on our operating model over six quarters. Cost synergies. Cost synergies shared today are expected to be realized over an eight quarter timeframe post-close. We acknowledge Micro Focus's previously announced cost reduction program of approximately $300 million net of inflation, with several measures already underway. We expect to work with the leadership to bring the program to its full completion. In addition, we have identified $100 million of additional cost synergies as Micro Focus rolls under the OpenText umbrella, addressing duplicative public company and facilities cost, systems, and processes.
We have a great opportunity to bring a high level of operational excellence. On free cash flows on a pro forma basis, Micro Focus's adjusted free cash flow was 9.5% of revenues during the trailing 12 months ended April 30th, 2022. Over a period of eight quarters post-close, we expect to expand Micro Focus free cash flows and maintain in the low to mid-20s% as a percentage of revenue. The current conversion for Micro Focus from adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow is approximately 30%. Applying OpenText's experience to enhance Micro Focus working capital engine will be a key priority and resulting in a higher conversion ratio of adjusted EBITDA to free cash flows. OpenText's long-term aspirations on a standalone basis, as shared with all of you at our March investor day, noted $6 billion+ cumulative free cash flows over the next several years.
Getting Micro Focus to our operating model and free cash flow conversion standards gives us an opportunity to increase the 6 billion plus aspiration significantly. We will provide a full update upon close. Moving to deleverage. With expanding EBITDA and free cash flows being a priority, we look to de-lever to a net leverage ratio of less than 3x within eight quarters following close. This has been a proven run of play for OpenText as we acquire companies, secure debt, and de-lever rapidly. We will keep you updated along the way. On integration, I would point you to slide 21 of our investor deck, where we have outlined our detailed integration execution framework for Micro Focus. OpenText has deep expertise, a long history of making acquisitions and delivering strong cash-based returns, including complex integrations.
With respect to Micro Focus, we will apply our experience along with the added strategy and resources to align Micro Focus's global scale of people, products, and customers. On our disclosures, during our last earnings call, we expanded our disclosures to provide financial outlook relating to enterprise cloud bookings. With Micro Focus, we are ready to uplift our commitment to provide clear and enhanced visibility into our high-value businesses with expanded portfolio of products and business units, taking lessons from the best technology companies. Lastly, I want to reiterate our commitments, as Mark shared in his remarks. There are eight commitments relating to the transaction outlined on slide 24 of the investor presentation. We are excited to deliver to those commitments.
With that, a big thank you to the OpenText and management teams for all their hard work and support, and look forward to driving all efforts towards closing the transaction. Let me open up the call to questions.
Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, then one on your touchtone phone to join the question queue. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please ensure you lift the handset before pressing any keys. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, then two. Who has a question may press star, then one at this time. Our first question is from Steven Li with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hey, thanks, Mark, Madhu. Wanted to see if you can reconcile for me. Micro Focus EBITDA currently is at 35% like you said, Madhu. That's their first half results. That has about $150 million of cost savings in there. That leaves 250 synergies to come, which is about 10 points of margin. I wanted to ask why Micro Focus would just be on OpenText operating model in six quarters. Should we not be looking at 42%+ margins with the synergies?
Yeah. Yep. Steven, thank you for the question. There are a few parts to it. One, as you heard in the call, we are looking to stabilize and accelerate revenues, and that will require investments. We are absolutely gonna pursue the cost reduction, as we mentioned. You sort of look at growing revenue by stabilizing, taking a look at, as Mark said, the high value, you know, business areas, as well as implementing the remainder of the cost reduction, getting it to a full program. We're just giving ourselves six quarters to put all of that together. Mark, do you wanna add any comments here?
Steven, we're not here to provide a financial model, a set of projections yet. We'll do that upon closing. Clearly there is opportunity on the EBITDA side, converting that EBITDA to free cash flow. We're gonna invest to stabilize and grow and accelerate cloud. We're providing a lot of information today. We'll provide our financial models and targets upon close. We are confirming today OpenText's target models for this year, and I'm holding on very clearly to our aspirations for FY 2027 of 37%-39%, with opportunity. More to come when we close.
Okay, great. Mark, on the revenues, why are we losing revenues, Micro Focus?
I'm sorry. I haven't done a call in my office in Richmond Hill, and I forgot to unplug the phone. Sorry. We're all here in Richmond Hill. Sorry about that. Look, I think they're gonna benefit significantly. The first piece is, you know, we've transformed our renewals business, as we've talked about, to a larger business of other services that, of course, we have our license maintenance piece in there. We have customer success pieces. We have security pieces, assessment services. We run a world-class renewals practice. You know, as you saw at the end of the year, we reported 94% renewals. Those learnings they'll benefit from. As well, we'll be able to accelerate their.
We'll be able to provide technologies and accelerate their transformation to private, public, and API cloud. Our proven OpenText business system will just make the entire group even more efficient. Cloud technologies and renewals, Steven, are the two big areas that we're shouting out.
Got it. The return to organic growth, best guess at the timeline for that organic growth return, Mark, for Micro Focus?
Yeah, I'm not ready to say that. You know, we'll, when we close, we'll talk more or we'll talk specifically about the financial model and the business plan.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from Thanos Moschopoulos with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon.
Hey, Thanos.
Madhu. Hey, Mark. I don't know if you can comment on this, but in terms of the deferred revenue write-down, should that be comparable to what we've seen with prior acquisitions?
Sorry, Thanos. Your question was about deferred revenue?
Yeah, the deferred revenue writedown, whether that would be consistent with what we've seen through prior acquisitions?
I'm going to maybe alter your question in a way. If you're referring to the purchase price adjustments. We did have a new accounting regulation, I think we're talking about a year ago, where we no longer have to do the PPA writedown. We are on the new accounting standards as far as PPA goes.
Okay. That's helpful. In general, can you comment on whether there's any other accounting nuances we should be aware of when we're looking at Micro Focus's, you know, revenue recognition and financials in relation to how you'll be reporting them?
Yeah. I'll answer it in two parts. As I mentioned, we shared today the pro forma financials for April as Micro Focus provided to us. Second, they have the public information out there. I will say being a software provider, software company from a revenue recognition perspective, it is pretty consistent with what we've seen in the past. Also keep in mind, I mean, I'm sorry, if you don't mind, just one more. Just keep in mind that we have a couple steps to go. They are IFRS, and we have to bring them to our sort of non-GAAP and to the U.S. GAAP, and we'll work on all of those, you know, at the time of the close.
Okay. Finally, Mark, just going back to the revenue question, and this is clearly, you know, a declining asset consensus call for ongoing declines in future years. The message from you that a lot of it is really around blocking and tackling, you know, leveraging the best practices. I mean, is there anything more fundamental that might need to be fixed or that could be a challenge or is it just blocking and tackling from your perspective?
Yeah, you know, yeah, let me just kinda amplify a little bit, and thank you for that, Thanos. The fundamentals look a lot like Documentum to me, but only with more scale. You know, when we purchased Documentum, it was slightly declining. We stabilized it, and now it's growing well in the cloud. Micro Focus has been on a path under Stephen's leadership, doing a really nice job to stabilization. I'd point you to some of their public comments of where they feel they're gonna stabilize. OpenText can help accelerate that. There are a handful of areas. You'll note. Oh, I've taken a note here. Let me see if I can find it quickly. You know, number one is renewals.
If you look at their first half results that they posted in April, the significant decline was in renewals. We can clearly help there with our best practices. Second piece is accelerating to the cloud. They're just starting their journey. We have a great slide in our investor deck showing our movement to... Yep, slide 13. Thank you, Madhu. Where, you know, fiscal 2013 to our fiscal 2022, you know, we've gone from $180 million of cloud revenues to $1.5 billion. They look like where they were on our journey many years ago at $136 million and only 5% of revenues. So, you know, private cloud is difficult technology and expertise, and we've scaled.
That's gonna be directly applicable to them. Acceleration in some technologies on public cloud and SaaS. Renewals, best practices, technologies in cloud, access to an SMB channel, and those things together give us the confidence to accelerate their stabilization and return them to total organic growth and faster acceleration of cloud growth.
Okay. Helpful. Thanks. I pass the line.
Yeah. Thank you.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question is from Paul Treiber with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Oh, thanks very much, and good afternoon. Just Micro Focus, they've made a number of acquisitions over its history. Just in regards to the integration and the underlying business, you know, how much work do you feel you have in integrating the acquisitions and the businesses underneath Micro Focus as opposed to just integrating Micro Focus with OpenText?
Yeah, Paul, thanks for the question. Look, you know, they haven't done large acquisitions recently, so you know, you look at their six areas, their information management and governance area. You know, the big pieces there we're quite excited about are IDOL and Secure Content Management. Not much integration from our view that needs to go on there. On the ITOM side or the IT Operations Management, they haven't done an acquisition there recently, but they have OpsBridge, you know, their network management data center automation and service management, and they have a new SaaS product there, called Service Management Automation X or SMAX. On the cyber resiliency side, you know, Fortify, ArcSight, Voltage, NetIQ haven't done a recent acquisition there. They have a new integrated SaaS offering.
On the application modernization and connectivity, which is their distributed COBOL hosted connectivity, not a recent acquisition. We're quite excited about Vertica, the analytics. I would say they're quite far along that we can see of what they've integrated, right? Now, we see opportunities into our portfolio of bringing some of our public SaaS, you know, closer to service management. They're gonna bring advanced analytics across our portfolio, et cetera. No, I think they're fairly well integrated and the future integration is all on the cloud pieces for them.
Thanks. That's helpful. Just in terms of, you know, the cloud technology stack, you know, OpenText investors are well aware of the investments that you've made over the years in developing that. You know, how do you see those investments accelerating or helping accelerate Micro Focus' transition to the cloud? Like, in what extent can you leverage those investments?
I think of our scaled private cloud operations, our security and network operating center, all the technologies, 1,000 people at OpenText in operations to manage a private cloud, where all that investment would be available to OpenText customers, Micro Focus customers, where we can immediately provide that private cloud option, lift, shift, to the cloud. Candidly, you just can't recreate that at this point. It's too large, too much security, too many data zones. The barrier to entry for any technology company to create this at scale is massive. We've built this up over six years, and it's gonna be directly relevant and applicable to every Micro Focus customer.
Okay. Just one last one for Madhu. How should we think about the cost of debt? Are there any tax implications one way or another?
Yes. The cost of debt upon closing, I presume that's what you mean. We have shared the details in the landing page. You can take a look at that. We have two parts to it, and one is gonna be a term loan for about $2.6, and the other is a bridge loan about $2, and the rates are 5.5% and 6%, five and seven years. Yeah.
Thank you. That's helpful.
Yeah. Thank you.
The next question is from Stephanie Price with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Congrats on the transaction. Just following up on Paul's question there. Just curious about leverage immediately post the deal and how you kind of think about the puts and takes for getting leverage down to that 3x level you were talking about.
Yeah. I'll start and then hand it over to Madhu. Thank you, Stephanie. Yeah, as we noted that, you know, we think we'll be around 3.8x.
Yep.
At time of closing and then eight quarters to get below 3x. Our priority is clearly going to be the delevering. You know, I note that, you know, the combined business will be generating $2.2 billion, as you just pro forma the adjusted EBITDA right now. It's $2.2 billion without our synergies. That allows us to rapidly delever from the 3.8x to under 3x over the eight quarters. We don't intend to use equity to finance. We plan to continue our dividend program on the strength of these cash flows. We've done this multiple times in previous acquisitions. It's a playbook from us, and we intend to keep you completely up to date every quarter with high visibility and tracking. The debt structure allows us to bring the debt structure down quarterly.
Right.
Which we intend to do.
Stephanie, happy to expand on that if you have any follow-ups.
No, no, that was great color. Thank you. In terms of the timeline to close, can you just walk us through what the regulatory approvals and the other approvals that are required for close?
Sure thing. You know, we'll be expecting to close in the first quarter of the calendar year or our Q3, and require shareholder vote from Micro Focus shareholders, a pretty standard and typical regulatory approval from U.S. and U.K. We'll raise our financing as a third phase and then close. There are pretty straightforward, well-known and very deterministic. Micro Focus' shareholders will hold a shareholder vote. We'll have a U.K. regulatory and U.S. We don't expect significant challenges here at all. Very confident in the roadmap and playbook. We'll complete our financing and lock into that, then we'll be in a position to close.
Okay, thanks. Maybe just finally from me, Madhu, the cash conversion at Micro Focus, obviously this is a little low for a software company. Just curious about the puts and takes and how you improve on that.
Yeah. Two things. You'll see this in their in the public disclosures as well. They have been doing their own restructuring, right? There's a fair amount of free cash flow that's been burdened by that. They've had some significant tax payments as well. We're not ready to comment on the full tax pieces as the question came up earlier. We'll do it upon close. Those have certainly weighed down. As far as the working capital goes, we still believe there's opportunity to get it up to the OpenText standards, as well as we optimize the combined tax structures. All of that is going to help us get the conversion from the 30% up to our standards over a period of time. We've given ourselves eight quarters to do that.
Great. That's helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up call from Steven Li with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Okay, thanks. Madhu, I just wanted to ask a different question on that free cash flow conversion. Yeah, you're right. The conversion looks for Micro Focus is low because of interest and leases and so on. Their CFO was actually 108% of adjusted EBITDA in their first half. Your comments on OpenText working capital experience, I mean, does that mean there's room to improve on that 108% conversion? Most of the free cash flow improvement is gonna come from interest cost savings and so on? Thank you.
Their working capital engine is good, but I do believe there is room to improve that and get it very agile. Again, it will take some time. You're absolutely right, the interservice charges have been very high. As part of the acquisition, we are gonna be paying off the debt. That's one burden that's come down. Plus the other two, as I mentioned, they have been doing restructuring, you know, significant tax payments. We look to, you know, optimizing all of that.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Maybe just as a follow-up to all of the analysts here, and then if there are more questions, we'll take it. Just a reminder that we will provide the complete financial outlook and the disclosures upon closing of the transaction. As you're looking to understand the models, I would say, do give us an opportunity to come back to you after close and give you the full picture.
The next question is from Daniel Chan with TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Micro Focus has a lot of parts that you've highlighted. Is the plan to keep all of these components and continue to work on these segments? To what extent do these different segments, how well do they migrate to the cloud?
Yeah, Dan. Dan, thank you. Yeah, well, as Madhu just highlighted, you know, we'll provide our financial model and business plan upon closing. I'll just. I'm gonna defer the first part of your question. We. Let me note, we really like the entire business, right? I don't wanna send a mixed signal at all. We like the entire business. We'll be more precise on the business when we close.
Slide ten in our investor deck, we brought together the high value business segments and how we've see this coming together in the full information management market. The business network, experience cloud, content cloud, security cloud, developer cloud with their app development and app modernization, and IT ops management. It's really a kind of a nice path journey map of the two functional domains of how they fit together. Daniel, let me just say, everything they do would benefit from the private cloud. Being able to move their SIEM-like technology to a private cloud offering. IDOL, a private cloud, distributed COBOL private cloud, which could run in a hyperscaler. App delivery management, IT operations management.
Dan, the entire portfolio across the board, and this is why it's one of our top three areas we wanted to shout out, would benefit from our private cloud operations. It's helpful.
Thanks, Mark. I also think Micro Focus acquired HPE's software business a while back. They did. You compete directly with them in the information management space. How does this acquisition change the competitive dynamics in that core market of yours? Thank you.
Yeah, I'll just note that HP divested Interwoven, I believe. Those pieces became iManage, which is not part of Micro Focus. We don't compete with Micro Focus in content management. Simply, we don't compete. There's a little piece called TRIM, which is in a different part of the market, but we do not compete in content management. In fact, we're excited about IDOL, which is their advanced facial recognition and complex event manager platform, that we think would have applicability in the content market. To say just very clear, we do not compete with their IM&G group.
Thanks, Mark.
I will now hand the call back over to Mr. Barrenechea for closing remarks.
Okay, very good. Thanks for joining us today, and sorry to ask you all to join on such short notice. We're clearly very excited about today's news and the transformative opportunity we have with OpenText and Micro Focus. I'll be at the Citi bank conference in New York City, September 9th, live and in person, and I hope you can all join us there. Madhu and I look forward to continuing the conversation. Thanks for joining today.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.