So it’s been a few days and I haven’t seen any mention here of the private equity purchase of Anaplan.
To me this should be of interest to most who follow this board, not because you necessarily own, or wanted to own Anaplan. But because it is at least one independent measure of value of a SAAS type company.
Here is a blurb taken straight from a press release:
Anaplan, a provider of business-planning software, agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm Thoma Bravo for $66 a share, or $10.7 billion.
So here we have a SAAS type company who is growing revenue at roughly 30%. Last quarter’s growth was in the low 30’s and it was the same for the full year, so pretty consistent.
It was selling for roughly $6.7 Billion at the time ($45/share) when the private equity offer came in for $10.7B.
Since Anaplan had total revenue of roughly $600M this last 12 months, that equates to 11 times sales when the private equity company stepped (clearly thinking it was significantly undervalued) and 17+ times sales with the offer.
Obviously no guarantees here but a private equity firm coming in and saying a nicely growing SAAS company at 30% is worth 17 times sales is certainly reassuring to me that SAAS companies growing 50-60% (or more) should be worth substantially more.
Just a reassuring thought on a Sunday morning in a tough market.
Randy