NEW YORK, Jan 13, 2026, 02:45 EST
- Confluent will release Q4 and full-year 2025 results on Feb. 11 after the U.S. market close
- Company will not host an earnings call or provide an outlook due to the pending IBM deal
- Shares remain just below IBM’s $31-a-share cash offer
Confluent (CFLT.O) said on Monday it will report fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results on Feb. 11, but it will not hold an earnings conference call or provide a financial outlook because of its pending sale to IBM (IBM.N). 1
That matters now because earnings calls are usually where management answers the only question deal traders keep asking: is anything slowing down. With no call, the stock loses one of its few near-term pressure points.
The absence of guidance also keeps the focus on timing and odds, not the quarter itself. For a cash deal, the small gap to the offer price is basically a clock: the longer the wait, the less that $31 is worth.
Confluent shares closed on Monday at $30.43, about 57 cents below IBM’s offer price. IBM shares ended up 2.6% at $312.18.
IBM said in December it would acquire Confluent for $31 per share in cash, valuing the company at an enterprise value of $11 billion — a deal measure that includes debt. IBM said it expects the transaction to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA, a measure of operating profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, within the first full year after close, and to add to free cash flow — cash left after capital spending — in year two. IBM also said shareholders holding about 62% of Confluent’s voting power signed agreements to support the deal. “With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI,” CEO Arvind Krishna said, while Confluent CEO Jay Kreps said the company was “excited” by the chance to join IBM. 2
When the deal was announced, Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital, called Confluent the “critical data firehose” behind AI workloads and said the purchase could strengthen IBM’s recurring revenue base. 3
Confluent sells data-streaming software built on Apache Kafka, which companies use to move and process data between systems in real time. IBM has framed the deal as a way to bolster its hybrid-cloud business — technology that blends on-premise computing with public cloud — as it competes with larger cloud vendors such as Amazon and Microsoft.
A preliminary proxy statement said the merger cannot close until the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act — the U.S. premerger antitrust law — has expired or been terminated. The filing said the initial 30-day waiting period was set to run until 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Jan. 12 unless regulators grant early termination, restart the clock, or issue a “second request,” a deeper demand for information that can stretch reviews out for months. 4
But the deal is not done. It still needs Confluent shareholder approval and other clearances, and any delay can widen the discount to $31, especially if borrowing costs rise or risk appetite thins out.
