HACKER Q&A
📣 moleintheground

Private Equity Success Stories?


Are there any great examples of private equity acquisition of and exit from a software company that ended up with the company being better or the product being better?


  👤 troydavis Accepted Answer ✓
I briefly saw a midsize public company ($3-$5 billion valuation) while it was public and then after it had been taken private by 2 PE firms. Under PE ownership, the horizon for product decisions and other investments was 1-3 years, vs. 1-6 months while public. Being public meant managing to earnings expectations, which sucked. While not perfect, I think PE ownership was better for the company and the products.

I might have a different opinion if the alternative was, say, the company being owned by the same family for 50 years.

All of this depends entirely on the PE firms. The ones involved here were savvy about software and growth (think Silver Lake).