Private equity firm Thoma Bravo LP has signed a deal to acquire RealPage, real estate management software vendor Inc.
RP -0.92%
for $ 9.6 billion, in one of the largest recent leveraged buyouts.
Thoma Bravo will pay $ 88.75 a share for the company, a 31% premium to RealPage’s closing price of $ 67.83 on Friday, firm officials said.
Based in Richardson, Texas, RealPage provides a technology platform used by rental home owners and managers. Tenants can pay their rent or submit a maintenance request using RealPage software. The company also maintains a database of real-time lease transactions so it can predict where the markets are headed.
Its shares are up 26% this year.
“We were able to do quite well during the pandemic because our industry was in a rush to go virtual, and we were one of the platforms that did,” Steve Winn, RealPage Chief Executive, said in an interview.
Mr. Winn previously led Computer Language Research Inc., a maker of tax software, which he sold to what is now Thomson Reuters Corp.
in 1998. He bought back part of the real estate software company and built it into what is now RealPage. The company has grown both organically and through a series of acquisitions, closing 12 deals in the past three years.
Software was among the most resilient industries during the Covid-19 pandemic as companies show that they will continue to pay for it, even if they cut other costs. As a result, Thoma Bravo, a technology specialist, has become one of the most active private equity deal makers of the year. RealPage would be the largest acquisition to date.
Its price tag makes it a relatively rare leveraged buyout reaching nearly double-digit billions of dollars. While such deals were commonplace before the 2008-2009 financial crisis, they have become rarer and buyout companies are more cautious, even when sitting on a mountain of unused cash.
Based in San Francisco and Chicago and led by managing partner Orlando Bravo, Thoma Bravo manages more than $ 70 billion in assets. That includes $ 22.8 billion it raised in October for three separate vehicles.
The private equity firm sold Ellie Mae Inc. in September. to the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange Inc.
Thoma Bravo, which bought the mortgage software company for $ 3.75 billion last year, made four times its money.
Write to Miriam Gottfried at [email protected] and Cara Lombardo at [email protected]
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Appeared in the December 21, 2020 print edition as “RealPage to Sell for $ 9.6 Billion.”