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US private equity firm Francisco Partners has agreed to buy financial data provider Macrobond for around €700mn, the latest deal in a sector that has attracted billions of dollars from investors in recent years.
Francisco Partners is acquiring the business from rival private equity firm Nordic Capital, according to people familiar with the matter. The US-based firm beat off competition from other private equity groups and strategic buyers.
Founded in Sweden in 2008, Macrobond provides financial data and technology services to more than 800 banks and asset managers, according to its website.
Nordic Capital has made nearly six times its money since first backing the macrobond in 2018, showing the returns on offer to investors typically attracted to the predictable subscription-based revenue financial data providers offer.
Over the past 18 months, both financial data provider Reorg and Leveraged Commentary & Data have teamed up on big money deals.
Buyout group Permira took a majority stake in Reorg last August, valuing the troubled credit and bankruptcy information provider at about $1.3 billion.
This comes a few months after data group Morningstar acquired Leveraged Commentary and Data from S&P in a deal worth up to $650mn, which reports on debt financing transactions.
Nordic Capital bought the Macrobond with the aim of helping it expand its market position.
“We have made significant investments in the technology of the business as well as focused on building its unique data set and differentiating it from its competition,” said Emil Andersen, partner at Nordic Capital.
Nordic Capital also helped the company push into new markets in Asia and North America. Macrobond employs 230 people across six offices in Europe, Asia and North America.
The private equity group is exiting its investments at a time when the broader buyout industry is under pressure to return capital to the institutional funds that back them.
The Macrobond sale also marked a rare sale of an asset among private equity groups. The volume of such deals has declined in Europe this year as volatile markets have made pricing assets more challenging, while rising interest rates have made financing deals more expensive.
Stockholm-based Nordic Capital has committed €22 billion in more than 130 investments since its founding in 1989, including billions of dollars in technology and payments companies. It raised €9bn for its most recent fund.
The Macrobond transaction is expected to close by the end of August.
