Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman has taken a 7.5% stake in software maker Splunk Inc worth about $1.45 billion, according to a regulatory filing on Friday. 

Shares of Splunk, which has a market value of nearly $20 billion, rose 1% in pre-market trading.

The company on Wednesday named former Proofpoint top boss Gary Steele as its chief executive officer. Its previous CEO Doug Merritt stepped down in November, just days before the company's third-quarter results.

Splunk had received a takeover offer worth more than $20 billion from Cisco Systems Inc, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

The Journal first reported the news of the stake earlier on Friday.

(Reporting by Tiyashi Datta and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)