(Reuters) -Shares of Anaplan Inc rose over 26% in premarket trading on Monday after the software maker agreed to be taken private by Thoma Bravo LP for $9.65 billion, in a sign of rising private equity interest in the cloud-based software space.
The deal, announced on Sunday, would give Anaplan investors $66 for each share held, a premium of more than 30% over the company’s last closing price on Friday.
With pandemic-led lockdowns accelerating digital transformations across enterprises, demand for cloud has jumped. While most software companies saw their shares jump last year, Anaplan failed to capitalize on the boom and its shares tumbled over 36%.
Anaplan provides planning software as a service to businesses that help in modeling different forecasting outcomes, and has more than 1,900 customers worldwide.
Hedge fund Sachem Head Capital Management took a nearly 5% stake in Anaplan last month to press the company to make changes.
Software-focused Thoma Bravo, which has with more than $103 billion in assets under management, will focus on Anaplan’s software platform and branding to grow business. The deal is expected to close in the first half of this year.
The highly leveraged buyout is the latest in the software sector, which has attracted interest from private equity players.
Many software firms have also taken the go-private route, largely seen as a way to grow for businesses in the midst of model transformation.
In January, software company Citrix Systems said it would be taken private for $16.5 billion including debt by affiliates of Elliott Management and Vista Equity Partners.
The news of the Anaplan deal, which has an enterprise value of $10.7 billion, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
(Reporting by Vishal Vivek and Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Chavi Mehta; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Aditya Soni and Shinjini Ganguli)
