Corporations and other strategic buyers are presenting buyout shops with serious competition in today’s heated market, but they’re also supplying a rich source of exits, according to the Buyouts cover story, published June 20. As of June 13, strategic buyers around the world bought 15,825 companies, including full or partial stakes, with a combined value [...]

Vista Equity Partners has apparently begun raising its next fund, Vista Equity Partners IV. The San Francisco-based private equity firm, which focuses on software and technology firms, has total committed capital of $2.7 billion, according to the firm’s Web site. Vista was founded in 2000.
The previous fund in the series, Fund III, closed in 2008, having raised $1.3 billion.

The new fund was revealed as an agenda item for Thursday’s forthcoming meeting of the New Jersey State Investment Council. No word yet as to the size of the proposed commitment nor the fundraising target of the fund itself.

Last year, Vista introduced a fund in a new series, Foundation Fund I, which held an interim close after having raised $195 million of its $400 million overall target.

Private equity firms Huntsman Gay Global Capital and Vista Equity Partners have recapitalized Sunquest Information Systems, a provider of laboratory information systems. Huntsman Gay led the recap. Vista Equity Partners has owned Sunquest since 2007, and says it will retaining a significant stake in the business. Financial terms of the deal were not released.

Huntsman Gay Global Capital LLC, an upstart buyout shop working through a $1.1 billion debut fund, is leading an investor group expected to pay $208 million for a 51 percent stake in Sunquest Information Systems Inc., a provider of laboratory, radiology and pharmacy software products to hospitals and commercial laboratories. Get the full story at Buyouts.

Details of the complex transaction remain sketchy. But according to Moody’s Investors Service, the company would simultaneously borrow $655 million as part of proposed bank credit facilities. Along with $38 million of cash on hand, the company would use $630 million in proceeds from the debt offering to “fund a dividend to existing shareholders, refinance $115 million of outstanding debt, and pay related fees and expenses,” Moody’s said.

Vista Equity Partners, a technology-focused buyout shop with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Austin, Texas, helped create Sunquest in 2007 after buying the diagnostic systems business from Misys Healthcare Systems for a reported $381 million. The company is still listed as a portfolio company on the Vista Equity Partners Web site, suggesting it is one of the existing shareholders benefiting from the dividend. We were unable to reach executives at Vista Equity for comment, and an executive at Huntsman Gay declined to comment.