Friday, March 29, 2024
HometechnologyThoma Bravo's $12.3 billion purchase of Proofpoint is the largest private equity...

Thoma Bravo’s $12.3 billion purchase of Proofpoint is the largest private equity cloud deal

  • Prior to the Proofpoint deal on Monday, the largest cloud acquisition by a private equity firm was the $11 billion purchase of Ultimate Software in 2019.
  • Just last week Thoma Bravo completed its biggest prior purchase in software, with the $10.2 billion acquisition of RealPage.
  • Proofpoint shares surged 31% to close at $172.70 after the announcement on Monday.

Gary Steele, CEO, ProofpointScott Mlyn | CNBC

Even with private equity firms spending record amounts of cash for software in recent years, Thoma Bravo just trumped them all, announcing the biggest cloud buyout ever on Monday.

Thoma Bravo said it's buying security software vendor Proofpoint in a deal valued at $12.3 billion. The announcement comes four days after Thoma Bravo closed its prior top cloud acquisition — the $10.2 billion purchase of RealPage, which serves the real estate industry.

The buyout firm has been building up a portfolio of cloud software vendors, focusing primarily on companies that have seen slowing growth rates and are selling at discounts to their peers. Founded in 2002, Proofpoint went public nine years ago and just passed $1 billion in annual revenue by providing software to stop malware and help businesses protect employees from phishing and other scams across mobile and cloud.

"We believe this is a great exit for a company that has significantly decelerated over the past two years," wrote analysts at Mizuho Securities, in a note to clients. Proofpoint's revenue growth slowed to 18% in 2020 from 24% in 2019 and 39% the year before that.

Before Monday's announcement, the largest cloud software purchase in private equity came in 2019, when an investor group led by Hellman & Friedman agreed to buy Ultimate Software for about $11 billion. Thoma Bravo's other cloud acquisitions include the $3.7 billion purchase of Ellie Mae in 2019 and the announced $2.4 billion purchase of Talend last month. Robert Smith's Vista Equity Partners has been the other big private equity buyer in software, acquiring companies including Apptio, Mindbody and Pluralsight.

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