Fifth Street Asset Management Inc. announced that its affiliate, Fifth Street Management LLC, served as administrative agent and lead arranger for a $171 million one-stop financing facility to support LegalZoom.com, Inc. LegalZoom is the nation's leading provider of quality online legal solutions for families and small businesses. The financing facility, which consists of a first lien term loan and a revolving credit facility, includes investments from Fifth Street Finance Corp. and Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp. The terms include the ability to access an additional $75 million over and above the $171 million to fund future acquisitions.
A company backed by the Permira funds became LegalZoom's largest shareholder in February 2014 through an investment of more than $200 million. Permira is a global private equity firm that advises funds with approximately €25 billion in total committed capital, specializing in five key sectors: Consumer, Financial Services, Healthcare, Industrials and Technology. LegalZoom represents the Fifth Street platform's fifth financing in support of a Permira funds-owned company and the fourth in the last twelve months alone. Particularly of note during this time, Fifth Street provided a $110 million one-stop financing facility in connection with the acquisition of software company Metalogix H&S Holdings, Ltd. in December.
"Fifth Street continues to be a strong relationship for our firm, with deep software industry expertise and comprehensive financing solutions that offer certainty and efficiency to our transaction process," said Nic Volpi, a Partner at Permira, adding, "LegalZoom is the clear leader in the huge untapped market for small business and family law, and we believe Fifth Street is the ideal lending partner to help support the company through its next chapter of growth."
"With its trusted brand, passionate team and cutting edge technology, LegalZoom continues to transform the legal industry by offering millions of Americans access to smart, cost-effective legal protection," noted Ivelin M. Dimitrov, FSAM's Chief Investment Officer, adding, "We are proud to support the Permira funds and LegalZoom on this transaction and in the future as they continue to expand their product offerings and geographic reach."
"LegalZoom funded its growth over the last 14 years from a single angel round of $1 million and internal operating cashflow," said John Suh, CEO of LegalZoom, adding, "As we expand in the U.S. and abroad, the combined resources of the Permira funds and Fifth Street will help deliver access to capital commensurate with the opportunity to reshape the delivery of legal services."
Fifth Street Asset Management Inc. is a growing credit-focused asset manager. The firm has over $6 billion of assets under management across two publicly-traded business development companies,