Vista Equity agrees $3.5bn Pluralsight deal

March 2021 | DEALFRONT | PRIVATE EQUITY & VENTURE CAPITAL

Financier Worldwide Magazine

March 2021 Issue

Vista Equity Partners is to acquire Pluralsight Inc in an all-cash transaction worth $3.5bn. Pluralsight shareholders will receive $20.26 per share, a premium of approximately 25 percent to the company’s volume weighted average closing stock price for the 30 trading days prior to the announcement of the deal.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Pluralsight shareholders and receipt of regulatory approvals.

Pluralsight, which was founded in 2004, raised more than $190m before going public in 2018. The company has 1700 employees and more than 17,000 customers, including 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Upon completion of the transaction, Pluralsight will become a privately held company and shares of Pluralsight common stock will no longer be listed on any public market. Pluralsight will continue to be headquartered in Silicon Slopes, Utah.

“We have seen firsthand that the demand for skilled software engineers continues to outstrip supply, and we expect this trend to persist as we move into a hybrid online-offline world across all industries and interactions, with business leaders recognising that technological innovation is critical to business success,” said Monti Saroya, co-head of the Vista Flagship Fund and senior managing director at Vista. “Through its platform, Pluralsight enables these leaders to improve productivity and provide career pathing opportunities across their IT workforces.”

“We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Vista, which delivers significant immediate cash value to our shareholders, and positions Pluralsight to continue meeting and exceeding the expectations of our customers,” said Gary Crittenden, Pluralsight’s lead independent director. “This transaction, which is the result of a robust process overseen and directed by an independent Transaction Committee of the Board of Directors, is a testament to the value Pluralsight has created and the reputation our team has built. Enterprises all over the world rely on Pluralsight’s solutions to strengthen technology skills, innovate faster and meet their core objectives.

“With Vista’s support, we are confident that Pluralsight will be even better positioned to deliver value to our customers,” he added. “We are confident that this transaction is the best path forward for Pluralsight and our stakeholders”.

“Today’s announcement is an exciting milestone for Pluralsight as we begin the next phase of our evolution,” said Aaron Skonnard, co-founder and chief executive of Pluralsight. “Through this partnership with Vista, we will be able to move faster and be more agile, accelerate our strategic vision and, ultimately, deliver deeper, more powerful solutions that help companies adapt and thrive in the digital age.

He continued: “We are relentlessly focused on helping enterprises improve and optimise their technology workforce and providing the most effective path to skills transformation for their technology teams. The global Vista ecosystem of leading enterprise software companies provides significant resources and institutional knowledge that will open doors and help fuel our growth. We’re thrilled that we will be able to leverage Vista’s expertise to further strengthen our market leading position.”

Vista has over $73bn in assets under management, and specialises in investing in enterprise software, data and technology companies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the ‘edtech’ sector, which was already seeing strong growth in the upskilling of IT professionals online. Pluralsight helps educate IT professionals, including developers, operations, data and security professionals, with a suite of online courses. The company has a library of over 7500 courses across technology, design and business skills. It also offers a data analytics tool for engineers, called Flow, which came about because of its $170m acquisition of GitPrime in 2019.

Upon completion, Pluralsight will become the second publicly traded education technology company to be acquired by a private equity firm in as many years. In March 2020, Thoma Bravo acquired Instructure for $2bn.

Richard Summerfield