By Milana Vinn
(Reuters) – The private-equity owners of Diligent are weighing strategic options, including a sale, that could value the corporate-governance software maker at nearly $7 billion including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.
Buyout firms Insight Partners, Blackstone, and Clearlake, which jointly own New York-based Diligent, have started interviewing investment banks as they prepare to launch a sale process for the company early next year, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the matter is confidential.
The deliberations are at an early stage and a deal is not guaranteed, the sources said, adding that potential buyers include other private-equity firms and data providers such as LSEG and S&P Global.
Diligent, Blackstone, Insight Partners, Clearlake and LSEG declined to comment. S&P Global did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Private-equity firms are looking to exit longstanding investments, following a deal drought during the last two years due to high interest rates that made financing of leveraged buyouts more expensive.
With the U.S. Federal Reserve starting to lower rates, buyout firms that have raised tens of billions of dollars recently are preparing to invest that money while also exiting investments they were unable to offload earlier.
Diligent makes secure communication and collaboration software for board directors of companies, top-level management teams and governance committees. The company counts more than 700,000 board members and top-level company leaders as customers.
Insight Partners, which is the biggest investor in Diligent, took the company private off the New Zealand stock exchange for $624 million in 2016. Clearlake came in as a minority investor in the company in 2018, followed by Blackstone two years later.
(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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