Ares Capital Corporation is serving as the administrative agent, joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner for a $1.075 billion unitranche credit facility in support of the acquisition of Qlik Technologies, Inc. by Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity firm. Ares Capital is committing to and holding a large portion of the financing, which is the largest unitranche financing by a business development company to date. In addition, Ares Capital will be leading the syndication process to attract additional lenders to the credit facility. Other lead joint arrangers include Golub Capital LLC, TSSP and Varagon Capital Partners, LP. The transaction is expected to close late in the third quarter, subject to customary closing conditions, including investor and regulatory approvals.
Qlik is a leader in visual analytics with a portfolio of products that help businesses analyze and visualize data. Qlik offers an intuitive platform with world class associative analytics and visualizations coupled with unrivaled data governance, scalability and interoperability. With access to Qlik’s solutions, customers are able to gain actionable data insights in real-time rather than weeks or months. Headquartered in Radnor, PA, Qlik has offices around the world and is able to service 39,000 customers across every vertical in more than 100 countries.
“Leading our industry’s first billion-dollar unitranche financing marks another milestone in the strong and consistent growth of Ares Capital,” said Kipp deVeer, Chief Executive Officer of Ares Capital. “Thoma Bravo turned to us for certainty of closing as well as our scale and experience in closing large transactions at a time when banks continue to retrench from lending to corporate clients due to changes in regulation. We believe this transaction is representative of the growing acceptance of direct lending as a mature asset class, and we believe our market leading position puts us in the forefront of this paradigm shift.”
“This unitranche financing was unprecedented in size and required a quick commitment from Ares and the syndicate,” said Erwin Mock, Director of Capital Markets at Thoma Bravo. “Due to Ares Capital's size and experience, we were confident that we could rely on them to arrange the financing of our acquisition of Qlik in a timely manner.”
Ares Capital is a leading specialty finance company that provides one-stop debt and equity financing solutions to U.S. middle market companies, venture capital backed businesses and power generation projects. Ares Capital originates and invests in senior secured loans, mezzanine debt and, to a lesser extent, equity investments through its national direct origination platform. Ares Capital’s investment objective is to generate both current income and capital appreciation through debt and equity investments primarily in private companies.
Thoma Bravo is a leading private equity investment firm building on a 30+ year history of providing equity and strategic support to experienced management teams and growing companies. The firm seeks to create value by collaborating with company management to improve business operations, invest in growth initiatives and make accretive acquisitions. Thoma Bravo invests with a particular focus on application and infrastructure software and technology enabled services. The firm currently manages a series of private equity funds representing more than $15 billion of equity commitments.