By Anirban Sen and Milana Vinn
(Reuters) -N-Able, a U.S. provider of information technology software with a market value of about $2.5 billion, is exploring a sale after attracting acquisition interest, people familiar with the matter said.
The Burlington, Massachusetts-based company, which counts two private equity firms – Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo – as major investors, is running a sale process in which peers in the software sector and private equity firms are participating, the sources said.
One of its suitors is cybersecurity company Barracuda Networks, which is owned by buyout firm KKR, the sources added, cautioning that no deal is certain and asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential. KKR acquired Barracuda from Thoma Bravo for about $4 billion in 2022.
N-Able’s shares jumped more than 8% on the news in early trading on Wednesday.
Silver Lake, N-Able, and KKR declined to comment. Thoma Bravo and Barracuda did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
N-Able was spun out in 2021 from management software firm SolarWinds, which had been in turn acquired by Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo for $4.5 billion in 2016. The two buyout firms now each own about a third of N-Able.
The company makes software used by informational technology companies to provide services to businesses, such as monitoring and security. According to its website, N-Able counts 25,000 service providers among its customers.
Global take-private deal volumes have jumped nearly 40% so far this year compared to the same period in 2023, according to Dealogic.
Education software firms PowerSchool and Instructure are currently in talks with buyout firms to be taken private, Reuters has previously reported. Financial technology firm Envestnet is also exploring a sale after receiving acquisition interest from potential buyers, Reuters reported in April.
(Reporting by Anirban Sen and Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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