U.S. private equity colossus Thoma Bravo has purchased British enterprise software firm Anaplan for $10.7 billion. Thoma Bravo will pay $66 per share for Anaplan in an all-cash transaction.
As long as there are no objections from regulators or Anaplan’s stockholders, the transaction is expected to close in the first half of the year. Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners are advising.
Anaplan, a financial planning software vendor, was founded in 2006 in a barn in Yorkshire, England by Guy Haddleton, Sue Haddleton, and Michael Gould.
Seen as a competitor to firms such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, Anaplan has more than 1,900 customers across the globe.
“We are confident that Thoma Bravo’s resources and insights will help us accelerate and scale our growth strategy,” said Frank Calderoni, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Anaplan, in a statement.
Anaplan raised over $240 million in funding prior to listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. The firm received investment from Salesforce and Amazon- and Tesla-backer Baillie Gifford. It also relocated its headquarters to San Francisco that year.
Thoma Bravo, which has more than $103 billion in assets under management, has acquired or invested in more than 375 companies over the past 20 years.
It has followed Anaplan for several years, calling it a leader in “connected planning,” in a statement by Managing Partner Holden Spaht,
Activist investors have also recently taken a stake in Anaplan. Keith Meister’s Corvex Management and Scott Ferguson’s Sachem Head Capital Management have teamed up to make changes at Anaplan.
Corvex and Sachem Head purchased shares of Anaplan because they saw them as undervalued and “an attractive investment opportunity,” according to recently released regulatory filings. Jonathan Soros, son of investor George Soros, also purchased a stake via JS Capital Management. The filings also show that, combined, the three firms own about 9% of Anaplan’s outstanding shares.
