Exclusive: Ivanti in market

by Brenon Daly

One of the larger private equity (PE)-backed rollups may be rolling into a new portfolio. Several market sources have indicated that Clearlake Capital Group currently has infrastructure software giant Ivanti in market, with second-round bids expected soon. If the process moves ahead, the buyer is almost certain to be a fellow PE shop, with the price likely to be in the neighborhood of $2bn.

Buyout firm Clearlake has built Ivanti from a series of acquisitions, with the bulk of the business coming from the January 2017 purchase of LANDESK Software. (Subscribers to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase can see our estimates for the price and valuation of that significant secondary transaction.) After it bought LANDESK, Clearlake rolled a pair of existing portfolio companies into that platform, which then took the name Ivanti in early 2017. The rechristened business went on to pick up another two companies later that same year.

Although two years is a relatively short holding period for a buyout shop, Clearlake is looking to take advantage of a hot secondary market. Large PE-to-PE deals have become a popular way for buyout firms to put their record amounts of cash to work in transactions that – rightly or wrongly – they tend to view as less risky than other big-ticket acquisitions. The M&A KnowledgeBase lists roughly a dozen secondary deals valued at more than $1bn over the past year.

A classic rollup, Ivanti offers a broad basket of infrastructure software products, with a particular focus on ITSM and information security. According to our understanding, the business runs at a roughly 30% EBITDA margin. Subscribers to the premium edition of the M&A KnowledgeBase can see our full profile of Ivanti, including financial performance, competitors and other key measures.