Hellman & Friedman LLC and Thoma Cressey Equity Partners have bought the Austin, Texas-based company from investment funds affiliated with HM Capital Partners LLC.
Activant targets SME users in four verticals: hardware and home centers, lumber and building materials, automotive parts aftermarket, and wholesale distribution. Boasting that than 30,000 customer locations use its software to manage their day-to-day operations, Activant made net income of $13.3m on revenue at $265.9m in the year to September 30.
It has been an acquisitive company and in March 2005 it paid $100.8m for Montreal, Canada-based Speedware Corporation Inc, which supplies software for lumber merchants, and in September its acquired for $174.4m wholesale distribution software provider Prophet 21 Inc. If these two companies had been included, it would have taken its 2005 revenue up to $369.3m.
