Curious as to how many players are actually able to compete in acquiring large expensive software companies that are rapidly growing revenues but are cash flow negative due to heavy r&d and sg&a spend. This seems like the opposite of what most firms value in stable cash flows, so wondering if the classic huge pe firms are even bidding for them or if it's just thoma and vista.
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Some people call the category growth buyout. There aren’t a ton of large cap players that play in this category, but here are a few: H&F, Advent, Permira, and Warburg.
Warburg????
Warburg Pincus also looks at growth buyout deals in Tech. I don’t think buyout burners are common for them. They seem more focused profitable growth in tech, but I know they’ve spent time on several EBITDA negative assets.
Vista and Thoma. Out of the 17 publicly traded SaaS to private transactions from 2020 to 2022, 14 have been from Sponsors with most coming from Vista and TB, the rest from KKR, Clearlake, Permira, Advent, and Symphony Technology Group ( STG).
All targets were unprofitable at time of acquisition
No francisco partners?
Yes FP is also up there, I believe they acquired Sumo Logic not too long ago ( Feb 2023 ?)
Yes FP is also up there, I believe they acquired Sumo Logic not too long ago
Wondering why other huge funds or even UMM players don’t participate. Seems like the thoma/vista playbook can be implemented given the amount of resources they have.
Because they are pussies
Really just comes down to $$ on hand.
Most of these acquisitions will continue posting hundred million dollar losses for a couple years before they churn a profit.
One needs a strong balance sheet to finance this, thus why only the largest players are eating SaaS up.
So after acquiring these huge unprofitable companies at massive premiums they have to continue injecting them with even more capital to give them runway? Would imagine they immediately turn off the opex/capex tap and start generating some cash. Thought the whole point was buy on revenue sell on EBITDA. Would love to hear from someone whose done this before.
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