Permira to make more than 5x on sale of Magento Commerce

  • Firm invested roughly $200 mln of equity in 2015
  • Adobe acquired Magento for $1.68 bln
  • Hillhouse Capital to exit its stake as well

Permira is poised to make more than 5x its money on the $1.68 billion sale of Magento Commerce to Adobe, a source with knowledge of the deal said.

Hillhouse Capital, which invested $250 million in Magento last year, will also sell its stake to Adobe.

The deal, announced May 21, is expected to close in the third quarter, pending regulatory review.

A group composed of Permira, Sterling Partners, Innotrac Corp and Longview Asset Management acquired eBay’s enterprise business in 2015. Permira invested $200 million in the deal and spun out one of the eBay Enterprise business units, Magento, into an independent platform once the deal closed.

Magento is a digital platform that provides services to online merchants. The company handles roughly $155 billion of merchandise volume each year, its website said.

The company undertook several strategic initiatives during Permira’s ownership, including launching a cloud-first platform for businesses and hiring new leadership for its product, sales, marketing and business-development teams.

“We were pleased to support Magento’s ambitions through our global platform and sector expertise, and we are confident that Magento has found a terrific home with one of the Company’s major existing partners, Adobe,” Permira Partner Phil Guinand said in a news release.

Qatalyst Partners was a financial adviser to Permira in the transaction. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson was a legal adviser to the firm.

Action Item: For more on Magento, visit magento.com

Photo courtesy of jwblinn/iStock/Getty Images