Thoma Bravo exits Adenza in cash, shares deal; NOVA Infra sees RNG growth; Partners utilizes generative AI

Good morning Hubsters, Craig McGlashan here with the opening Wire of the week.

Thoma Bravo has grabbed the headlines this morning with an agreement to sell financial services software provider Adenza to Nasdaq. Thoma Bravo formed the company through a merger just under two years ago.

We then switch sector to renewable energy, where PE Hub’s Obey Martin Manayiti speaks to NOVA Infrastructure co-founder Allison Kingsley and senior vice-president Stephen Denis about the firm’s partnership with Nopetro Energy to create a renewable natural gas platform.

Generative AI finishes the day’s news, with a look at how Partners Group is starting to use the technology.

Big exit
Thoma Bravo has agreed to sell financial services risk-management and regulatory software provider Adenza to Nasdaq for $10.5 billion in cash and shares of common stock.
Adenza has more than 60,000 users at companies such as banks, broker dealers, insurers and asset managers. It provides products including trading, treasury and risk management platforms and has headquarters in London and New York.

Adenza has estimated revenue for 2023 of $590 million, organic revenue growth of around 15 percent, annual recurring revenue growth of 18 percent and adjusted EBITDA margin of 58 percent.

Thoma Bravo formed the company nearly two years ago when it combined AxiomSL and Calypso.

Managing partner Holden Spaht is expected to join Nasdaq’s board of directors after the deal closes, which is predicted within six to nine months.

“We are excited to become a strategic shareholder in Nasdaq and bring our deep software and technology experience to help drive further innovation and digital transformation across the global financial system,” Spaht said in a statement.

Renewables
The push to decarbonize the world’s energy use is only going to intensify, and one potential source would be renewable natural gas (RNG), which comes from landfills, dairy farms, wastewater treatment plants and municipal waste facilities.

Now NOVA Infrastructure, a New York-based private equity firm, has partnered with Nopetro Energy to create an RNG-focused platform.

PE Hub’s Obey Martin Manayiti spoke to NOVA co-founder Allison Kingsley and senior vice-president Stephen Denis about what attracted them to the sector.

“One thing that we do like about the space is that there is growing optionality for offtake,” said Denis, adding, “you can sell the gas into transportation customers that might fuel their vehicles with CNG.”

CNG, or compressed natural gas, is a gasoline and diesel fuel alternative that consists primarily of methane. Nopetro owns and operates RNG distribution facilities in Florida and supplies CNG to government counterparties such as the Orlando Lynx bus system, garbage trucks and other industrial partners under long-term contracts in the Florida market.

What could also push demand is the fact that many regulators are pushing for the wide use of RNG in a bid to cut fossil fuel use. This could trigger more demand, Denis said.

“There is also a growing trend towards gas utilities being mandated by the states where those utilities operate to purchase a certain portion of their gas supply as RNG,” he said.

Check out the full interview to hear where NOVA sees growth opportunities for the sector.

For more on private equity interest in that energy source, head over to PE Hub Europe to read about Partners Group agreeing to buy a biogas and biomethane energy platform in Germany.

AI roll-out
Over on PE Hub Europe, we’ve been looking at how Partners Group is using generative AI.

“We had actually deployed an internal, ringfenced model of GPT-3.5 to a group of pilot users and this was recently rolled out to all of our employees – we call it PRIMERA GPT,” Patrik Bless, co-head of business applications and chief information security officer, told PE Hub Europe’s Nina Lindholm.

Read more about how Partners is approaching privacy and confidentiality issues as well as its end-goal for the tech here.

To read about how dealmakers and third-party origination service providers are using generative AI, check out this piece by Rafael Canton.

That’s all from me – Obey will be writing to you tomorrow.

Cheers,

Craig