Vista backs Resilinc; Charlesbank-backed Accordion buys Merilytics

Good morning, Hubsters.

MK Flynn here with the Wire.

Scoop: Earlier this morning, I was the first to report that Accordion, a PE consulting firm well-known to many of our readers, is buying a specialist in data and analytics.

Michael Choe, the CEO of Charlesbank, and Accordion founder Nick Leopard weigh in on how the deal reflects the latest trends in private equity.

Vista just announced a strategic growth investment in a developer of supply chain risk management software.

Also today, Buyouts is out with its annual list of 10 emerging managers.

Unlocking value
PE firms are more focused on value creation than ever before, given the challenges of the current economy and the slowdown in dealmaking.

Reflecting the emphasis on value creation, Accordion, a New York-based consultancy that provides CFO services to hundreds of private equity firms, just announced that it has agreed to acquire Merilytics, a Hyderabad, India-based provider of analytics, data management and business intelligence services.

To learn more about the deal and the trends driving demand for CFO services, I conducted exclusive interviews with Nick Leopard, the founder and CEO of Accordion, and Michael Choe, the managing director and CEO of Charlesbank Capital Partners, an investor in Accordion.

“The M&A and leveraged capital markets have been dislocated since the beginning of 2022,” Choe told me. “The combination of slowing earnings growth, overall reduction in debt availability, increase in cost of debt and the slowdown in new platform activity means much of the work in private equity has shifted to portfolio company improvement. When this type of shift happens, improving FP&A [financial planning and analysis] analytics, liquidity forecasting, transformation and equipping the office of the CFO with the right technologies becomes critical.”

Leopard added: “Private equity firms have increasingly put a spotlight on the significant value creation benefits from having a deliberate master data governance strategy, and this being the foundation of advanced analytics to drive the prioritization of all the value creation levers at their disposal. This data and analytics foundation ‘table stakes’ is not just to appease the board demands, but when done right, should be a massive tool for the front lines of any portfolio company to make day-to-day decisions in real time.”

Founded by Leopard in 2009, Accordion provides financial and technology consulting services focused on CFOs for more than 250 private equity firms and their portfolio companies. The company has annual revenues of $200 million.

The Merilytics acquisition marks the company’s fourth and largest acquisition. The deal also marks the first add-on since Charlesbank, based in Boston, and Motive Partners, based in London, bought a majority stake in Accordion in September 2022.

At that time, FFL Partners, based in San Francisco, exited Accordion, reportedly realizing a return of 4.6x, after four years of holding a minority stake.

“The modern CFO’s role may be among the hardest, but most critical to the value creation process,” Choe explained. “CFOs know they need to digitize, and that technology will only get more important as a key source of value-driving insights. Merilytics expands Accordion’s ability to provide end-to-end data and analytics solutions and support to clients, which is critically important to empowering PE sponsors and portfolio companies’ value creation journey.”

Mitigating supply chain risks
The pandemic and other events over the last few years have demonstrated the vulnerability of the global supply chain. Remember the Ever Given, that container ship that ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021?

Since then, many private equity firms have invested in companies that aim to solve some of the problems.

Just this morning, Vista Equity Partners unveiled a strategic growth investment in Resilinc, a developer of supply chain risk management software.

“Resilinc operates in a market ripe for transformational growth,” said Rachel Arnold, co-head of Vista’s Endeavor Fund and senior managing director. “Its solutions provide companies hyper visibility into the granular aspects of their supply chain along with actionable insights to proactively steer decision making.”

Vista’s Endeavor Fund provides growth capital and strategic support to founder-driven, high-growth enterprise software companies that have achieved at least $10 million in ARR.
The investment in Resilinc marks the fifth transaction made by Endeavor in the last two weeks: Endeavor announced minority growth investments in Benchmark Gensuite and Innovapptive. And it marked two liquidity events via partial realizations of its investments in Fusion Risk Management and Tripleseat. Both companies reportedly grew their enterprise values to over $500 million during Vista’s holding period.

Emerging managers
Buyouts’ Chris Witkowsky and Kirk Falconer have identified 10 intriguing first timers that are today braving a brutal fundraising market.

Here are three that caught my eye:

Bansk Group
Bansk, formed in 2019, is led by GPs with pedigrees in the branded consumer world. Among them are chairman Bart Becht, a former top executive with JAB Holding Company, and CIO Brian O’Connor, previously co-head of Vestar Capital Partners’ consumer group.
They built a buyout firm dedicated to investing in four consumer sectors: beauty and personal care, consumer health, food and beverage and household products. Last year, Bansk raised more than half of the $1 billion target for its debut offering. It is expecting a final close this summer.

Broad Sky Partners
Broad Sky has had an interesting journey to where it is today. CEO Tyler Zachem originally started things up in 2014, but a year later took his team to Carlyle, where he helped create the long-duration investment platform. In 2021, he relaunched Broad Sky.
Now the shop is in the market with a first-time fund to invest in mid-market business services and consumer opportunities influenced by macro trends like digitalization, demographics and social change. To date, it has secured a good chunk of the pool’s $500 million target.

HarbourView Equity
HarbourView burst onto the scene in 2021, when founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares announced its launch with the backing of Apollo Global Management. The partnership awarded the shop with $1 billion of initial investable capital.

Soares, who previously ran Tempo Music, has since rolled out a commingled vehicle. Targeted at $500 million with a $1 billion hard-cap, it invests in another new and fast-evolving space: royalties-producing sound recording, music publishing and composition assets.

We’ll be keeping close tabs on all 10 emerging managers in the months ahead.

That’s it for me today.

If you’re in Las Vegas for ACG’s DealMAX conference, be sure to say Hello to PE Hub’s Obey Martin Manayiti. Drop him a note to set up a meeting. He’s at obey.m@peimedia.com.

And, as always, you can reach me at mk.flynn@peimedia.com.

I’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Until then, happy dealmaking,

MK