Thoma Bravo has agreed to buy Anaplan for $10.7B or $66/share, after the maker of cloud-based business planning software closed at $50.59 on Friday
Miriam Gottfried / Wall Street Journal :
Context & Ripple Effects
Anaplan moved from a $1.09B private valuation in 2016 to a public-market debut that valued the cloud planning provider at about $2.1B after a first-day surge following its IPO. Thoma Bravo’s agreement takes that public company private at $10.7B.
For Thoma Bravo, Anaplan extends a software-buyout pattern that already included QAD’s take-private deal, another cloud planning software provider, though QAD serves manufacturers.
First-order effects
- Anaplan shareholders are offered $66 a share, a substantial premium to the company’s Friday close of $50.59, while Thoma Bravo assumes ownership of the company in a $10.7B transaction.
- Thoma Bravo adds Anaplan’s cloud-based business planning software to a portfolio that already includes QAD’s manufacturing-planning business.
Second-order effects
- Anaplan’s shift to private ownership removes a public-market valuation reference for cloud-based business planning software while placing two planning-software assets under the same buyout firm.
- Thoma Bravo can evaluate Anaplan and QAD as adjacent planning investments, increasing pressure on other independent planning-software vendors to differentiate by customer segment or product scope.
Third-order effects
- The deal points to private equity treating established cloud enterprise-software companies as consolidation assets, with ownership increasingly organized around portfolios of adjacent business applications.
- If that acquisition pattern persists, fewer standalone public companies may remain in specialized planning software, shifting competitive comparisons from public-market performance toward portfolio strategy and operating execution.
The trend: Private equity is consolidating mature cloud business-software providers into portfolios of adjacent enterprise applications.