Workday skyrockets 19% before trading halted on report of Silver Lake takeover

Workday shares popped more than 19% on a report that private equity firm Silver Lake is in talks to buy the human resources software maker.

Shares were briefly halted in late afternoon trading and the company’s market value last topped more than $50 billion following the report from Reuters.

The discussions, citing sources familiar with the matter, have been ongoing in recent months, according to Reuters.

Workday and Silver Lake did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Software companies like Workday have come under immense pressure in recent months on mounting concerns that artificial intelligence tools will upend their business models. The stock is down about 3% this year and 7% from a year ago.

In March, co-founder Aneel Bhusri was renamed CEO after Carl Eschenbach stepped down. Bhusri has held various leadership roles at the company, including a stint as CEO and co-CEO.

“Aneel Bhusri, the CEO, and Egon [Durban] from Silver Lake know each other well through many connections. So we we think certainly this could make sense, and I think this goes back to how badly hit software’s been,” analyst Brent Thill told CNBC’s “Power Lunch.”

In May, the company posted better-than-expected results and upped it forecast on AI tailwinds.