Hg Capital Trust plc (LON:HGT) today announced that Hg Saturn and its investors have agreed to a further c.€640 million equity investment in Visma, a leading provider of business-critical software to private and public enterprises in the Nordic, Benelux and Baltic regions. CPPIB will also make a further investment of c.€110 million in Visma as part of this transaction.
Hg is already the majority owner of Visma, having led the original delisting of Visma from the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2006. Hg has been the lead or co-lead investor in Visma for the last 13 years. Cinven, who first invested in Visma in 2014, sold part of its stake to Hg and co-investors in 2017 and is now selling the entirety of its remaining shareholding in Visma as part of this transaction. The transaction values Visma at an enterprise value of over €6.5 billion.
Hg is Europe’s largest investor in private software business and has supported Visma’s management to build a world-class company through several stages of growth and innovation since 2006. Most importantly Visma management, backed by Hg, started to invest in cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in 2009. This early investment has given Visma a significant competitive advantage, having transitioned, over the last decade, from a largely on-premise software provider to being Europe’s largest provider of cloud-delivered SaaS to businesses. Today Visma has over $1billion of SaaS revenues delivered to more than 500,000 customers, with over 70% of Visma’s revenues coming from cloud-delivered SaaS products or services.
During Hg’s ownership period over the last 13 years, Visma’s world-class management team has delivered consistent revenue and profit growth of more than 20% per year, evolving from a business valued at under €450 million in 2006 into one valued at over €6.5 billion today.
Following completion of the transaction, Hg’s managed funds will own c.63% of Visma, alongside other significant co-investors including GIC, ICG, Montagu and CPPIB.
Nic Humphries, Senior Partner and Head of the Hg Saturn Fund said: “Working closely with Øystein Moan and his team over the last 13 years has been a pleasure. Quite simply they are a world-class team, and great fun to work with. They have built Europe’s leading SMB SaaS business. This is a testament to their technical competence and willingness to invest early and consistently for the long-term in new technologies that, in turn, bring great benefits to their nearly 1 million customers. Hg were able to recognise the potential of SaaS well ahead of most investors because of our longevity and focus on the sector. We are proud to have been by Øystein and Visma’s side every step of the way on this exciting journey for the last 13 years and many more in the future.”
Øystein Moan, CEO and Chairman of Visma said: “Hg is Europe’s largest and most consistent investor in software and SaaS businesses over the last 20 years, having led more software deals than any other private investor in Europe. To have a partner with this background is a significant advantage for any management team and this experience has helped Visma on every step of our growth. They have been, consistently, our largest investor over the last 13 years, demonstrating what long-term support really means. I’m delighted that two world-class investors, Hg and CPPIB, have decided to invest further in the company.”
This investment re-enforces Hg’s position as Europe’s leading software investor. Hg has led over 40 “platform” software investments and more than 200 bolt-on acquisitions, delivering industry-leading investment returns to its investors. Successful software/SaaS investments include: Addison Software, Allocate Software, Computer Software Group, IRIS Software, P&I, RAET, Sequel, Sovos and over 30 others.
