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Thoma Bravo Returns Billions to Backers in Days, Defying Logjam

A student's desk at a Catholic elementary school in Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2020. Schools in just 15 districts will fully reopen for instruction this fall as the majority of Massachusetts school districts plan to welcome students back to school part-time or not at all, according to state data. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- After a relatively barren few years for deals, backers of the world’s biggest private equity firms have one thing on their minds: returns.

For Thoma Bravo, the Chicago-based buyout group known for its big bets on enterprise software, a couple of transactions announced across a few days in late July is helping the firm to buck the logjam narrative that’s plaguing the buyouts industry.

The firm sold education software provider Instructure Holdings Inc. to KKR & Co. for $4.8 billion including debt and 50% of its stake in exchange operator Nasdaq Inc. for $2.7 billion. Those transactions generated realizations of about $2.9 billion and $2.4 billion respectively, according to a letter to Thoma Bravo’s investors reviewed by Bloomberg News. The fund had owned almost 84% of Instructure’s outstanding shares.

Thoma Bravo also “completely closed out” its investment in software observability platform Dynatrace Inc., according to the letter.

A representative for Thoma Bravo declined to comment.

In netting investors of its buyout fund roughly $5.2 billion in the course of a week, Thoma Bravo has returned about $19.4 billion since January 2023, the letter shows. From 2020 to 2024, realizations grew to approximately $48 billion, compared with $15.5 billion from 2015 to 2019.

Beyond Instructure and trimming the Nasdaq position it inherited in 2023 in connection with the $10.5 billion sale of financial software provider Adenza Inc., the firm announced the sale of cybersecurity player Venafi Inc. to CyberArk Software Ltd. for $1.54 billion in May. 

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.