Key Takeaways for Workday Stock as of August 2026
- Buyout Bid Report: Workday stock jumped 17% on Thursday, August 13, after Reuters reported that private equity firm Silver Lake is in talks to acquire the company, a deal that would rank among the largest software buyouts on record.
- Street Split: Analysts covering Workday stock currently break down as 18 buys, 5 outperforms, 15 holds, 2 underperforms and 1 sell, with a mean target of $171 that sits 17% below Thursday’s $206 close.
- Model Gap: TIKR’s mid case model values Workday stock at $332 by January 2031, implying 61% total return from the current price and 11% annualized.
- Target Slide: The Street’s mean target has fallen 42% over the past year, from $296 in July 2025 to $171 now, even as coverage grew from 36 analysts to 39.
Workday stock just handed the market a reason to rethink the whole AI disruption narrative around enterprise software, but the Street hasn’t caught up yet. See where Workday stock’s targets and ratings stand on TIKR for free →
Why Workday Stock Jumped 17% on Reuters’ Silver Lake Buyout Report
Workday (WDAY) stock jumped 17% on Thursday, August 13, after private equity firm Silver Lake entered talks to acquire the company, a deal that people familiar with the matter said would rank among the largest software buyouts in history. Nasdaq halted trading in the stock four separate times that afternoon as the volatility pauses kicked in.
The mechanics were straightforward once the report hit the tape. Workday carried a market value of roughly $43 billion before the news broke. Shares closed at $206.45, pushing that figure to around $51.1 billion in a single session. Silver Lake and Workday have held discussions “in recent months,” according to the sources, and the talks remain unresolved. There’s no guarantee a deal gets signed.
Silver Lake’s fingerprints are all over recent large tech buyouts. The firm has taken stakes in Dell Technologies, VMware and Qualtrics over the years, and it teamed with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners on last year’s roughly $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts. One source said Silver Lake could bring in additional investors to help finance a Workday transaction, following that same playbook.
Context matters here. Workday shares had fallen about 15% in 2026 before Thursday and sat more than 40% below their 2024 peak. Investors spent the year questioning whether traditional HR and finance software could survive an AI-driven repricing of the entire sector. Founder Aneel Bhusri returned as CEO in February, replacing Carl Eschenbach, tasked with proving the platform’s AI relevance heading into a period when private equity had mostly sat out large software deals over the same disruption fears.
The company itself still runs a real business underneath the deal speculation. Workday posted $9.6 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue, up 13%, and generated $2.9 billion in operating cash flow, up 19%. Growth has decelerated from 16% the prior year, which is part of why the stock had been under pressure. But a $43 billion company generating that kind of cash flow doesn’t usually trade like a broken business, and Thursday’s report forced the market to reprice that gap fast.
None of this confirms a deal happens. What it confirms is that Workday stock’s post-selloff valuation looked cheap enough to draw serious private equity interest, and that reframes the entire thesis from “can this business survive AI disruption” to “what is it actually worth.”
Workday stock’s move erased months of AI-fear discounting in a single afternoon, but a report of talks isn’t a signed agreement, and it says nothing about what happens if the deal falls apart.
The gap between what just happened and what the Street had priced before Thursday is exactly what makes Workday stock worth digging into now. Track the Silver Lake talks and Workday stock’s next move on TIKR for free →
Workday Stock’s Mean Target Trails the New $206 Price by 17%
Workday stock’s 39 covering analysts currently split 18 buys, 5 outperforms, 15 holds, 2 underperforms and 1 sell. The mean target sits at $171, which is 17% below where the stock closed on Thursday. That gap exists because most of these targets predate the Silver Lake report; analysts haven’t had time to reprice a takeover premium that materialized in a single afternoon.
The trend behind that snapshot tells its own story. Back in July 2025, the mean target stood at $296, a full 29% above the $229 the stock traded at then. By April 2026, both price and target had collapsed together, with the target falling to $179 against a $122 close as AI disruption fears gutted software multiples across the board. The mean target has now fallen 42% over twelve months, from $296 to $171, even though the number of analysts covering the stock grew from 36 to 39 over the same stretch. Coverage never thinned. Conviction did, and it shifted toward caution: buy-rated coverage slipped from 21 to 18, outperforms fell from 9 to 5, and underperform and sell ratings appeared where there were none a year ago.
Thursday’s jump ran ahead of that repricing, not with it. The Street built its targets around standalone fundamentals under AI pressure, and Silver Lake’s interest introduces a variable those targets don’t yet reflect: a strategic buyer willing to pay up for a business the public market had marked down.
TIKR Values Workday Stock at $332, Pricing In Fundamentals Beyond the Deal
TIKR’s mid case model values Workday stock at $332 by January 2031, implying 61% total return from the current price of $206, or 11% annualized over 4.5 years.
That 11% annualized figure puts Workday stock ahead of what most mature enterprise software names have offered investors over a comparable stretch during this AI-repricing cycle, even before accounting for whatever a completed buyout might add on top.
The case for that gap closing runs through the same fundamentals that made Workday attractive to a buyer like Silver Lake in the first place. Revenue grew 13% in fiscal 2025 on $9.6 billion, operating cash flow expanded 19%, and the business generates that scale without needing a takeover premium to justify a higher price.
TIKR’s model prices Workday stock as a standalone operator navigating AI disruption successfully, not as a takeout target, which means the $332 target holds regardless of whether Silver Lake’s talks ever produce a signed deal.
Should You Invest in Workday, Inc.?
The only way to really know is to look at the numbers yourself. TIKR gives you free access to the same institutional-quality financial data that professional analysts use to answer exactly that question.
Pull up Workday, Inc. stock and you’ll see years of historical financials, what Wall Street analysts expect for revenue and earnings in the quarters ahead, how valuation multiples have moved over time, and whether price targets are trending up or down.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
