Venture investment company Bain Capital are taking Thoma Bravo‘s Blue Coat. The deal to acquire BlueCoat is for $2.4bn cash, and will close in first half 2015. Bain is preparing Blue Coat for an IPO, so are expecting a launch share price that will recover their investment.
Since being purchased by Thoma Bravo in 2011, Blue Coat has grown, typically by acquisition. Crossbeam Systems in December 2012 was followed by Solera Networks and Norman Shark in 2013, and Perspecsys and Elastica in 2015.
“Blue Coat has differentiated products for protecting enterprises from even the most sophisticated threats, and we are proud to be a foundational part of the security architecture for the world’s largest enterprises. The world’s most trusted brands use Blue Coat, and the acquisition by Bain Capital sets us on the trajectory to further grow our portfolio, better serve our customers and help us prepare to return to the public markets. Bain Capital has a long history of accelerating growth, and I look forward to partnering with them in our journey to be one of the top performing security companies in the world.” – Gregory S. Clark, CEO, Blue Coat Systems, Inc.
Thoma Bravo also provided a quote supporting that they also have also covered their initial investments.
“We are extremely proud of our partnership with Blue Coat, which has achieved substantial growth since going private in 2012, while positioning itself as a leading next generation security company. We look forward to watching Blue Coat continue to grow with its new investment partner.” – Seth Boro, Managing Partner, Thoma Bravo
