Vista Equity Partners to procure insurance software organization Duck Creek

Vista Equity Partners to procure insurance software organization Duck Creek

Vista Equity Partners, a $2.6 billion private equity firm, has announced plans to privatize Duck Creek Technologies.

Duck Creek, based in Boston and offering software as a service (SaaS) for the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry, went public in 2020 with a market cap of approximately $5 billion at first. Duck Creek’s valuation has dropped to below $2 billion over the past year, with a closing price of around $13 per share as of Friday. The company’s fortunes peaked at around $7 billion in early 2021.

Vista’s offer of $19 per share represents a 46% premium over Duck Creek’s most recent market closing price and a 64% premium over its volume-weighted average price (VWAP) over the previous 30 days. This equates to $2.6 billion, which Vista stated it will pay in an all-cash transaction.

It’s important to note that Vista has been involved in some of the biggest enterprise deals this year. One of these deals was the $16.5 billion acquisition of Citrix by Vista and Evergreen/Elliott. Avalara, an automated tax compliance company, was purchased by Vista for $8.4 billion, and Datto, a disaster recovery company, was sold to Vista for $6.2 billion.

In relation to today’s announcement, Vista has also acquired insurance software companies such as Applied Systems, Eagleview, and Vertafore in recent decades.

“Vista has an established track record of partnering with leading enterprise software businesses within the insurance industry and related verticals,” Vista managing director Jeff Wilson said in a press release. “We are excited to work with the Duck Creek team as we look to build on their best-in-class platform and solutions, which serve many of the world’s leading P&C insurance carriers.”