Vista Boosts Offer for SumTotal

(Reuters) – Vista Equity Partners Fund III L.P., a private equity firm, raised its offer to buy SumTotal Systems Inc (SUMT.O) to $4.50 per share in cash, topping an offer made by Accel-KKR last month and escalating the bidding war.

The latest offer from Vista, which owns about 13 percent of SumTotal and is its largest shareholder, values the company’s outstanding equity at about $146 million.

Shares of SumTotal, an employee-management software maker, rose 17 percent to $4.53 in morning trade on Nasdaq.

Last month, SumTotal had agreed to be bought out by Accel-KKR, whose offer of $3.80 a share in cash trumped Vista’s earlier offer of $3.25 a share.

Vista said its latest offer of $4.50 per share represents a premium of 124 percent to SumTotal stock’s closing price on April 3, the day before Vista announced its initial offer.

Accel-KKR is a private equity firm that makes investments in mid-market technology companies. (Reporting by S. John Tilak in Bangalore; Editing by Deepak Kannan)