Advent Ends Sale Process for Unit4 Software Business

(Bloomberg) -- Advent International ended plans to sell Unit4 NV and will remain invested in the Dutch software company, a person familiar with the matter said.

Advent had been working with advisers to explore strategic options for the business, which included a potential sale or retaining ownership, the person said, asking not to be identified because the decision was private. Unit4 was expected to fetch a value of about 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion), people familiar with the matter said in November.

Unit4, which has spent more than 100 million euros in acquisitions, will be able to expand with additional deals, the person said. The company’s revenue from software-as-a-service has grown 20 percent annually since Advent’s 2014 investment, the person said.

A representative for Advent declined to comment.

Advent spent 1.15 billion euros to buy Unit4 four years ago. The buyout firm said at the time that its strategy would be to accelerate Unit4’s transition to a software-as-service business model, while growing operations outside its core European market.

Unit4 was founded in 1980 and has annual revenue of more than 500 million euros, according to its website. The firm agreed to buy U.S.-based education software provider Three Rivers Systems Inc. in June 2015.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Syed in London at ssyed35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dinesh Nair at dnair5@bloomberg.net, Amy Thomson, Chitra Somayaji

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