Clearlake Capital Group LP has struck a deal to buy Quest Software Inc. from Francisco Partners in the latest sign of private-equity firms’ voracious appetite for software.
The deal, expected to be announced as soon as Monday, values Quest at $5.4 billion including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.
It is the latest big buyout in software, whose steady cash flow has become a major draw for private-equity firms, as they set their sightson bigger and bigger deals. Earlier this month, Advent International Corp. and Permira Advisers signed a roughly $12 billion deal for cybersecurity-software firmMcAfeeCorp.
Based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., Quest makes software that corporate IT departments use for internal systems management, data protection and security. Quest was formerly part of the software business of Dell Technologies Inc.,most of which Francisco Partners carved out of the computer giant in 2016 in a $2.4 billion deal.
At the time,Dell was wrapping up its $60 billion merger with EMC Corp., and the divestiture allowed Dell to free up cash and focus on making the giant deal work.
Right away, Francisco split Dell Software into two separate companies: Quest, which represented the majority of the value in the deal, and cybersecurity provider SonicWall Inc. Unlike Quest, which is sold directly to enterprises by a team of company-employed salespeople, SonicWall focuses on small- and medium-size businesses and is sold through third parties.
(Dell retained a third piece, cloud-service provider Boomi, opting tosell the companyto Francisco and private-equity firm TPG earlier this year.)
Francisco recruited a new management team for Quest and focused on boosting profits and orienting the company toward high-growth areas, including software that verifies users’ identity.
In October, Quest bought identity access-management business OneLogin for an undisclosed price. Quest’s security and identity segment is now growing at double digits—faster than the core business—and Clearlake plans to continue building it through further acquisitions, according to a person familiar with the firm’s strategy.
The price Clearlake is paying amounts to 10.9 times Quest’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the last 12 months, the person said.
Francisco stands to make more than 6.5 times its money on the sale, some of the people said.
Based in Santa Monica, Calif., Clearlake was founded in 2006 and manages about $43 billion in assets across the technology, industrials and consumer sectors.
Technology is the primary focus for San Francisco-based Francisco Partners. Founded over 20 years ago, it manages more than $30 billion in assets.
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