The $2.6 billion agreement to privatise Duck Creek Technologies was announced by private equity powerhouse Vista Equity Partners.

When Duck Creek, a Boston-based supplier of software as a service (SaaS) to the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry, went public in 2020, it had a market worth of about $5 billion. Shares of Duck Creek closed at roughly $13 on Friday, bringing the company’s valuation down to below $2 billion, down from its all-time high of around $7 billion in early 2021.

Vista has made an all-cash offer of $19 per share for Duck Creek, which is a 46% premium over the stock’s most recent market closing price and a 64% premium over its volume-weighted average price (VWAP) over the last 30 days. This amounts to $2.6 billion.

Enterprising

To be sure, Vista has been at the core of some of the biggest corporate purchases over the past year, including the $16.5 billion acquisition of Citrix in partnership with Evergreen/Elliott. Vista paid $8.4 billion for tax compliance automation firm Avalara and $6.2 billion for the sale of data backup and recovery firm Datto.

In relation to today’s news, Vista has a track record of acquisitions in the insurance software space, including Applied Systems, Eagleview, and Vertafore.

“Vista has an established track record of partnering with leading enterprise software businesses within the insurance industry and related verticals,” Vista managing director Jeff Wilson. “We are excited to work with the Duck Creek team as we look to build on their best-in-class platform and solutions, which serve many of the world’s leading P&C insurance carriers.”