Synopsys Sued by PE Firm for Shopping $3 Billion Unit

A California private equity firm has sued Synopsys Inc. for allegedly breaching an exclusivity agreement when it shopped its $3 billion software integrity business widely earlier this year, in a rare instance of private deal negotiations spilling into the courts.

The private equity firm Sunstone Partners Management, LLC had signed a letter of intent to acquire part of the unit known as SIG, according to people familiar with the matter. But before the parties could close the deal and prior to the end of an agreed-upon exclusivity period, Synopsys publicly announced that it would put its entire SIG business up ...