Blackstone has agreed to acquire Ancestry from Silver Lake, GIC, Spectrum, and Permira at an enterprise value of $4.7 billion.
The buy of Ancestry is the first control acquisition for Blackstone Capital Partners VIII LP which closed in September 2019 with $26 billion of capital. As part of the transaction with Blackstone, GIC will retain a minority stake in Ancestry.
Ancestry has more than $1 billion in annual revenue and is the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world. The company operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites with more than 3 million paying subscribers, access to approximately 24 billion historical records, and 18 million people in its AncestryDNA network. Ancestry, led by CEO Margo Georgiadis, is headquartered south of Salt Lake City in Lehi, Utah.
“We are very excited to partner with Ancestry and its management team,” said David Kestnbaum, a senior managing director at Blackstone. “We believe Ancestry has a significant runway for further growth as people of all ages and backgrounds become increasingly interested in learning more about their family histories and themselves. We look forward to investing behind further data, functionality, and product development across Ancestry’s market-leading platform to continue to provide a differentiated service.”
Ancestry was founded in 1996 and went public in November 2009. In October 2012, Ancestry agreed to be acquired by Permira, Spectrum Equity, and members of the company’s senior management team. In April 2016, GIC and Silver Lake acquired an equity position in the company at an enterprise value of more than $3 billion.
“Ancestry’s large network of highly engaged users, unique content, and scaled technology platform have made it a market leader,” said Sachin Bavishi, a managing director at Blackstone. “We look forward to contributing Blackstone’s resources and leveraging our strong expertise in digital content to further accelerate Ancestry’s growth.”
New York City-based Blackstone (NYSE: BX) invests in private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, non-investment grade credit, real assets, and secondary funds. The firm also provides financial advisory services, including financial and strategic advisory, restructuring and reorganization advisory, and fund placement services.
“We thank Ancestry’s management team, employees, and our co-investors on the board including GIC and Spectrum, as well as our Board Chairman Tim Sullivan, for their partnership during a period characterized by impressive growth, accelerating technology innovation and expansion across new products,” said Silver Lake in a released statement. “We will be cheering on from the sidelines going forward, and hope and expect that the company will achieve continued success under Blackstone’s ownership.”
“Ancestry is the clear leader in helping people discover, preserve, and share their family histories,” said Choo Yong Cheen, the chief investment officer of private equity at GIC. “As a long-term investor, we are proud to have contributed to Ancestry’s family history mission since 2012, and we are confident the team will continue to innovate for years to come. We appreciate the contributions of Silver Lake, Permira, and Spectrum and look forward to partnering with the Blackstone and Ancestry teams for this next phase of growth.”
GIC was founded in 1981 to manage Singapore’s foreign reserves and to invest in private equity funds as well as directly in companies. GIC is headquartered in Singapore with a network of offices in nine cities worldwide.
Private Equity Professional | August 7, 2020
The post Blackstone Inks First Fund VIII Control Buy appeared first on Private Equity Professional.
