By CultureBanx Team
- Vista Equity Partners enters into £2B deal with BC Partners for Advanced
- In 2015, Vista took Advanced private in a $750M deal
Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, helmed by Robert F. Smith just banked about £2 billion ($2.4 billion) as they look to share the risk of growing cloud based companies. The deal is with BC Partners for a 50% share of UK healthcare software specialist company Advanced. It’s an interesting combination as Vista has experience working closely with several software firms, while BC Partners can provide the acquisition expertise across different markets, as they both work towards helping Advanced expand internationally.
Why This Matters: Smith’s business was among the early private equity firms to focus on software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies and has since become one of the largest owners of enterprise software products in the world. Even though full terms of the deal were not disclosed, it comes four years after Vista took Advanced private in a $750 million deal. This was at a time when Smith’s company was on a mission to accelerate its cloud based software solutions. This isn’t the first rodeo for Vista and BC Partners, the two companies worked together before, with the latter entering into a majority recapitalization of NAVEX Global in 2018.
Even though full terms of the deal were not disclosed, it comes four years after Vista took Advanced private in a $750 million deal
As the UK’s third largest software and services company, Advanced has launched 14 cloud-based SaaS solutions. Some of Advanced clients include British Gas, Virgin Atlantic and the NHS, as well as National Express and Specsavers. Advanced plans to keep this growth through acquisition strategy going, having already increased its size significantly since Vista took ownership.
Vista made another big move earlier this year when they acquired a $1 billion majority stake in Quick Base, a software company that provides people with no coding experience the tools to build internal software platforms.
Situational Awareness: The deal between Vista and BC Partners comes a week after asset management firm Blackstone bought a stake in BC Partners valued at €500 million ($554 million) for up to 15% of the firm. For Vista the sky seems to be the limit as they are currently raising capital for their new buyout fund, Vista Equity Partners Fund VII LP and have collected more than $13 billion for the fund.
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