Silver Lake to continue as majority shareholder in the enterprise software solutions provider

cegic-lyon

Cegid is based in Lyon, France. (Credit: Vanilla Dagger/Wikipedia.org)

Global investment company KKR has agreed to acquire a minority stake in Cegid in a deal that values the French software company at €5.5bn.

Established in 1983, Cegid is a provider of business management software solutions. The company is backed by technology investor Silver Lake, which will continue as its majority shareholder.

KKR said that it will partner with Silver Lake and existing shareholder AltaOne to support the growth strategy of the French software firm.

KKR EMEA technology head Jean-Pierre Saad and KKR France head Jérôme Nommé said: “We are excited to be part of Cegid’s journey going forward. We have followed the company for many years and have been impressed by the growth that Pascal and his team have achieved, transforming Cegid into a pan-European software leader.

“Today’s investment reflects our continued strategic focus on investing in European leading software businesses and on backing French tech champions in their growth journey.”

Silver Lake and AltaOne had acquired a combined stake of 37.6% in the software company in April 2016 from Groupama and ICMI. At that time, 100% of Cegid was valued at €580m.

Subsequently, in September 2016, Silver Lake and AltaOne increased their stake in the French company to 88.92% through a tender offer.

Cegid said that since Silver Lake’s investment in 2016, it has boosted its position in the market. Besides, the company is said to have registered robust double-digit revenue and earnings growth by focusing on SaaS solutions, and also by investing in value-enhancing acquisitions and next-generation cloud products.

Headquartered in Lyon, Cegid caters to certified public accountants (CPAs), financial and tax managers, and also human resources (HR), payroll, and retail professionals with cloud-based enterprise software solutions.

The company has a workforce of around 3,000 employees. Its cloud-based solutions are provided to more than 350,000 companies across 75 countries and 4.5 million users.

Last year, the turnover of Cegid was €498m.

Cegid CO Pascal Houillon said: “We have developed a strong suite of best-in-class cloud products across all of our six business segments, continuously improved customer service and extended our offering through strategic acquisitions to grow existing markets and enter new verticals.

“We are looking forward to continuing the close and trusted partnership we have formed with Silver Lake, who have supported us on our value creation path with their deep software expertise and will carry on doing so over the years.”

KKR’s equity investment, which is subject to regulatory approvals and customary conditions, is expected to close by the end of Q3 2021.

Earlier this week, KKR joined forces with Clayton, Dubilier & Rice to sign a $5.3bn worth deal to acquire Cloudera, a US-based enterprise data cloud company.