Clearlake & TA Associates Buy Precisely for $3.5B

March 12, 2021

Previously known as Syncsort, Precisely has signed a definitive agreement for Clearlake Capital Group and TA Associates to acquire the Company. Josh Rogers, CEO of Precisely, will continue to lead the Company supported by the existing management team. Upon closing of the transaction, Clearlake and TA Associates will become majority shareholders in Precisely. Centerbridge Partners, the current majority shareholder in Precisely, will retain a minority equity stake.

“With global spending on digital transformation expected to reach $2.3 trillion by 20231, Precisely is well positioned to generate rapid growth. Organizations around the world are increasingly focused on their ability to make confident business decisions from a foundation of trusted data, with maximum accuracy, consistency and context. This creates a unique opportunity for Precisely to be their provider of choice,” said Josh Rogers, CEO of Precisely. “Clearlake and TA Associates have experience partnering with software companies like Precisely that solve complex, critical business challenges and driving accelerated growth through operational best practices and M&A strategies to help them maximize their potential. I am excited to begin this next phase in the Company’s evolution with our long-time partners at Clearlake and am thrilled to welcome TA and their expertise to the team. I also want to thank Centerbridge Partners for their guidance and support over these past four years, and I am delighted they will continue as a minority investor in Precisely.”

The history between Clearlake and Precisely dates back to 2015 when Clearlake acquired Syncsort (the predecessor company to Precisely), a specialized provider of data integration products. In 2016, Syncsort acquired Trillium Software to expand its portfolio with leading data quality software, and Clearlake acquired Vision Solutions, a leading provider in data availability software solutions for IBM Power Systems. In 2017, Clearlake sold Syncsort and Vision Solutions to Centerbridge Partners in a transaction that combined the two companies to increase scale and extend leading data management capabilities, and Clearlake maintained a minority equity stake in the Company. In December 2019, the Company completed its acquisition of the software and data business from Pitney Bowes, adding leading location intelligence and data enrichment capabilities that cemented Precisely as the global leader in Data Integrity.

“Precisely has evolved significantly over the last several years by expanding its product offerings and establishing a differentiated sales strategy to provide a data management software suite that directly addresses the complex data quality challenges facing enterprises today and going forward,” said Behdad Eghbali, Founder and Managing Partner, and Prashant Mehrotra, Partner, of Clearlake. “Now with significant scale, Precisely is strategically positioned in the market as a buy-and-build platform and industry consolidator, and we’re thrilled to partner again with Josh utilizing our O.P.S.® framework to support the leadership team to help Precisely accelerate growth organically and through M&A.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Josh, Clearlake and Centerbridge, and to invest in Precisely as the Company hits a key inflection point in its growth trajectory,” said Harry Taylor, a Managing Director at TA Associates and Michael Libert, a Principal at TA Associates. “We believe Precisely is uniquely positioned to meet enterprise customers’ urgent need for secure, trusted, accurate and reliable data both on-premises and in the cloud as they rapidly adopt data integrity software solutions to help support mission-critical business use cases across increasingly disparate data repositories.”

“During Centerbridge’s partnership with Josh and his leadership team over nearly four years, Precisely has expanded its focus from IBM Mainframe and Power Systems to become a leading provider in data integrity across all sources of data with a broader suite of products,” said Jared Hendricks, Senior Managing Director at Centerbridge and Chris Litchford, Managing Director at Centerbridge. “With enhanced strategic positioning and through our continued ownership in Precisely, we look forward to the Company’s continued success as the team gears up for the next phase of growth.”

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021 pending customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

UBS acted as lead financial advisor to Precisely. Goldman Sachs and Jefferies also acted as joint financial advisors to the Company. Evercore, BofA Securities, Barclays and JP Morgan acted as financial advisors to Clearlake and TA Associates. JP Morgan, BofA Securities, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Morgan Stanley are arranging the debt financing for the acquisition.