By Anirban Sen and Priyanka G
(Reuters) – Buyout firm Bain Capital is in talks to take education software provider PowerSchool private, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The deal, which is still weeks away from signing, would likely value PowerSchool around $20 per share, according to the source, who requested anonymity because the discussions are confidential.
At that price, a deal would value PowerSchool at about $6 billion, including debt, according to Reuters calculations.
Shares of PowerSchool, which has a market capitalization of about $4.1 billion, jumped 27% in early trading Wednesday morning after The Wall Street Journal reported on the company’s discussions with Bain.
A deal for PowerSchool would come at a time when private equity buyouts are showing signs of recovery, after a slowdown last year due to high interest rates that made debt financing for private equity buyouts more expensive. loan.
Earlier this week, a private equity consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Francisco Partners agreed to acquire chip designer Synopsys’ software integrity unit for $2.1 billion.
PowerSchool, headquartered in Folsom, California, provides cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America. This project was started unofficially by Greg Porter as a teenager when he developed record-keeping software at his high school in 1983. The California school paid Porter and his friend $350 for the program.
Fourteen years later, Porter sold the first version of the PowerSchool student information system. In 2001 it was purchased by Apple, before its ownership changed hands again in 2006 when it was purchased by Pearson.
Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners acquired the company in 2015 and a few years later, buyout firm Onex invested in the company. Both companies still hold significant stakes in PowerSchool, which listed its shares in New York in 2021.
The company now has customers in more than 90 countries and its software is used by more than 50 million students worldwide, according to its website.
(Reporting by Priyanka G in Bengaluru and Anirban Sen in New York; editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
