After a $2.5 billion exit, Sapiens cuts 700 jobs and replaces its entire management
EXCLUSIVE: Advent’s takeover swiftly reshapes the Israeli software company’s leadership and workforce.
When summing up 2025 as a year of phenomenal exits, it is worth pausing to examine the sale of veteran software company Sapiens for $2.5 billion. Following its acquisition by the American private equity fund Advent, which was completed ten days ago, the Israeli company’s entire senior management was immediately replaced, and it is now preparing to cut about 15% of its workforce.
Calcalist has learned that Sapiens employees have been notified of the start of a “transformation” process and job consolidation that will result in layoffs affecting approximately 700-800 employees. The layoffs are expected to take place in January, after the end of the U.S. holiday season. In Israel, the cuts are likely to involve several dozen employees, and the immediate impact is expected to be more limited, since Sapiens’ main product, Idit, software used by insurance companies, is developed in Israel.
Sapiens employs 5,400 people worldwide, about 800 of whom are based in Israel at the company’s headquarters in Holon. Its largest operation is in India, and across Asia the company employs more than 2,000 people. In addition, Sapiens has roughly 1,000 employees in the UK and other European countries, and about 600 in the United States.
The primary reason for the cuts is the desire to reduce services activity, where many products are not growing or sufficiently profitable. Advent’s aim is to turn Sapiens into a leaner company focused on a smaller number of profitable products, even at the cost of a short-term decline in revenue. As part of this shift, the company’s headquarters are being moved to London, where management meetings will now be held, meetings that until now took place in Israel.
Advent announced in August that it would acquire Sapiens, previously controlled by the Formula Systems group, which held 43.5% of the company’s shares, at a 60% premium to the market price at the time. Formula is now left with a small residual holding. Sapiens was delisted from trading in New York and Tel Aviv on December 17, following the completion of the deal.
The immediate shift in the company’s center of gravity from Israel to the UK is evident in the appointment of new managers, all of whom are representatives of Advent. Already today, there is no trace of Sapiens’ previous leadership on the company’s website. The Israeli executives who led Sapiens until now, primarily in technology roles, appear only under the designation “Extended Management Team.” Two Israelis - Tal Sharon and Sveta Hardak-Nissan - are exceptions, having been promoted to newly created roles focused on customer service in the insurance sector.
Roni Al-Dor, who served as Sapiens’ CEO for 20 years, will formally remain in his role until December 31, 2025, but all other senior executives left their positions on the day the company went private. Mike Ettling, appointed by Advent as active chairman, has taken on the role of interim CEO. In addition, Advent has brought in a new CFO, a Chief People Success Officer, and a Chief Transformation Officer, replacing Israeli CFO Roni Giladi. The proliferation of employee-related executive roles signals significant organizational change that is expected to reshape the company and push many employees out.
Beyond the announced layoffs, many senior engineers and mid-level managers are also expected to leave. This is partly due to the absence of retention bonuses, a decision attributed to the Israeli management and Formula chairman Guy Bernstein, one of Israel’s highest-paid executives. Sales bonuses at Sapiens are considered low compared with younger high-tech companies such as Armis or Wiz, as well as older firms like CyberArk. Among employees in Israel and abroad, there is growing unrest over what is seen as modest compensation following a sale completed at a high premium. This frustration is compounded by Sapiens’ limited employee stock option program, despite its ambition to be viewed as a high-tech company.
Advent, founded in 1984, manages approximately $100 billion and is considered one of the ten largest private equity funds in the world. Among its better-known investments are Lululemon, Nielsen, and Thyssenkrupp’s elevator business. While Advent is not known for especially aggressive efficiency programs, its past acquisitions typically involved workforce reductions of about 10%, followed by the divestment of non-strategic activities. The fund approaches acquisitions with an intensive “100-day plan,” aimed initially at improving margins by eliminating duplication, consolidating departments, and shifting operations to lower-cost countries.
Sapiens has already undergone parts of this process, with operations in India and Eastern Europe. However, in the absence of Israeli leadership, additional steps may be taken in the future to further reduce the company’s Israeli workforce.
Advent’s core rationale for acquiring Sapiens is to accelerate its transition to cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) operations, and later to expand into AI-driven solutions. While Sapiens had already begun shifting from traditional software licenses to a SaaS model, the pace of change was not fast enough.
In response, the company said: “‘Following the completion of the acquisition and as we embark on the company’s journey toward 2026, these are our key focus areas: growth, innovation, empowering our people and operational efficiency. The measure of our growth will be how we support our customers on their own growth journeys. To achieve this, we’ll innovate faster to outpace our competition. We will empower our people to take responsibility for innovation, and we will become a simpler more agile business through operational rigour. These steps are designed to transform the company into a simpler, more agile, and efficient organization, with a core focus on innovation and delivering maximum value to our customers. This move aims to establish a rigorous operational foundation that will support our growth objectives and solidify our position as a global leader in the coming years.”
