Interesting deal, real estate data providers have been acquired actively and consolidated last few years. Have to assume it’s due to the institutionalization of the residential real estate market and the focus on selling this “proprietary” (its all public basically, not too different from accuweather using NOAA information then attempting to close it off to the public) data to funds and Rent to Own (Single Family Rental) shops spawned out of the crisis not to continue to feed into the consumer market. (I know StonePpint reasonably well, they overpay often and most of their wins are pro cyclical which may be true for most financial services PE shops, they’re in way over their skis on one deal with a firm called situs where they grossly overpaid the seller, Lou Ranieri of Salomon MBS fame, ultimately merging it with another portfolio company in a newer fund because it had no exit or sale at their price but they did get a dividend recap loan in 2018-2019 which leaves them with maybe $20mm left in the deal so they’ll be ok..)
DEALS
Stone Point Capital, Insight Partners Agree to Buy CoreLogic
An auction of the real-estate data provider had been kicked off by a pair of shareholder activists
A house at a development in Gibsonton, Fla., in 2018.
PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By Cara Lombardo
Updated Feb. 4, 2021 10:02 am ET
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CoreLogic Inc. CLGX +1.70% agreed to sell itself to two private-equity firms for about $6 billion, a surprising end to an auction of the real-estate data provider that was kicked off by a pair of shareholder activists.
Stone Point Capital LLC and Insight Partners said Thursday they agreed to buy CoreLogic for $80 a share, or about $6 billion. The deal represents a 51% premium to CoreLogic’s share price in June before the activists showed up, the companies said.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday that such a deal was near.
It’s a surprising outcome after the focus in the closely watched sale process had settled largely on two other competing suitors: CoreLogic rival CoStar Group Inc., which had made a higher, all-stock bid, and private-equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC.
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CoreLogic launched a sales process after activist investors Senator Investment Group LP and Cannae Holdings Inc. offered to buy the company for $65 a share and nominated directors to its board last year. Three of the directors later joined CoreLogic’s board after shareholders voted to add them in November.
CoreLogic is one of the largest residential real-estate data companies, providing property data used by real-estate professionals, financial institutions and consumers. Rivals include Zillow Group Inc., Redfin Corp. and Realtor.com, which is operated by Journal parent News Corp.
Acquisition activity has picked up as digitization sweeps the homebuying market. Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to buy property-management-software provider RealPage Inc. for $9.6 billion in December.
Stone Point Capital, based in Greenwich, Conn., and headed by Chuck Davis, primarily invests in businesses in the financial-services sector. Insight Partners is based in New York and focuses on software companies. Deven Parekh is its managing director.
Evercore was financial adviser to CoreLogic, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP was its legal adviser. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Wells Fargo Securities LLC were financial advisers to Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners. Kirkland & Ellis was legal adviser to Stone Point Capital, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher was legal adviser to Insight Partners.
Write to Cara Lombardo at
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