Vista Equity Partners acquires automation firm Blue Prism for $1.5 billion

Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners acquires British automation software firm Blue Prism for $1.5 billion.

Vista Equity Partners acquires UK-based Blue Prism Group Plc. for about £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion). Blue Prism specializes in developing software for robots to automate back-office repetitive tasks for enterprise companies. More than 2000 businesses, as well as Fortune 500 companies, use Blue Prism’s automation software.

Blue Prism said Vista would pay each shareholder a 35% premium to the company’s last closing price of £8.32. The price for Blue Prism marks a significant discount to its U.S.-based rivals UiPath, an automation company with a $28 billion market cap, and Automation Anywhere, which was last valued at $6.8 billion. Coast Capital, an activist investor, had previously expressed concerns over the valuation of Blue Prism amid speculation of a takeover by private equity buyers. Coast capital said that even if a buyer paid a premium of 100%, it would still be lower than the intrinsic value and the price at which the shares were trading as recently as January 2021.

Vista said it intends to indirectly transfer Blue Prism to their portfolio enterprise data firm, TIBCO. Jason Kingdom, CEO of Blue Prism, said that the combination of Blue Prism with Vista and TIBCO would ensure Blue Prism remains at the forefront of intelligent automation of the next generation.