Infor Draws Full Buyout Interest from Investors

Bloomberg has reported that Infor, who was seeking buyers for a minority stake last month, is also considering an outright sale.

Reporters Kiel Porter and Alex Sherman mention that Advent International Corp., Apax Partners and CVC Capital Partners are working on preparing offers to acquire New York-based Infor outright.

Sources say that the closely held company has an enterprise value of at least $10 billion.

Infor Announces Strong Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year Results
Software revenue for the quarter, including license fees and cloud subscriptions revenue, was up 34.9 percent and 35.5 percent year over year on a GAAP basis and non-GAAP1 basis, respectively, in constant currency2, and Infor added more than 700 new customers.

Total revenues for the quarter, on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis, increased year over year by 8.8 percent at actual currency rates and 9.4 percent in constant currency with growth in each revenue category, including software license fees and subscriptions revenue, product update and support fees revenue, and consulting services and other revenue.

“Infor continues to outpace the industry in our pivot to the cloud”Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor

“Infor continues to outpace the industry in our pivot to the cloud, with more than 40 percent of our software license revenue for fiscal year 2016 coming from SaaS, up from 10 percent only three years ago,” said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor.

“The heavy investment in R&D we began six years ago, with last-mile functionality built directly into our products, and deploying them on AWS rather than our own datacenters is paying off. Our focus on the application layer, industry domain, design excellence, commerce networks, and machine learnings is producing results. The momentum continues as we enter FY17 with the largest sales pipeline in company history propelled by continued growth in SaaS deal activity.”

New customer wins and go-lives announced during Infor's fiscal year 2016 include Triumph Motorcycles, Michaels, New York MTA, Lineage Logistics, Pilot Flying J, Christian Louboutin, Travelodge, Whole Foods Market, Washington Headquarters Service, and Hackensack University Medical Center.

Bloomberg further reports that the size and structure of the company’s debt may prove to be an impediment to a sale:

A club deal, in which a group of private equity firms would join together to buy the company, is one possibility, the people said.

Formal offers are expected in November, the people said, and a partial stake sale is still an option.

In 2012, Golden Gate and Summit invested in New York-based Infor in a 2012 deal that was completed alongside a merger with Lawson Software that valued the combined company at $1.8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Golden Gate has held a stake in previous incarnations of the company since 2002.

Infor provides a range of cloud computing software solutions to corporate clients, according to its website.

Spokesmen for Infor, Golden Gate, Apax, CVC and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Representatives of Summit, Bank of America and Advent didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.