By Amy-Jo Crowley and Emma-Victoria Farr
FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) – Private equity firms Hg and Permira are exploring strategic options for their stakes in German software firm Personal & Informatik AG (P&I), including a possible minority sale, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
A deal could value the provider of cloud-based HR software at more than 2 billion euros ($2.13 billion), said two of the people who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Other large private equity funds are interested in the company, the people said. The sources cautioned deliberations remain at an early stage and that a deal is not certain.
Hg and Permira declined to comment. P&I had no immediate comment.
Selling a stake in Wiesbaden-based P&I would follow similar deals in the sector this year. In May, Silver Lake acquired a minority stake in Italian business management software provider TeamSystem for 600 million euros ($639.42 million).
Alongside a minority stake sale, Hg may transfer its holding into another of its funds in order to keep capitalising on P&I’s growth, two of the people said.
A sale of a minority stake to a private equity firm would allow Hg to show returns to its investors, as it is not interested in a full sale, they said.
P&I is expected to generate revenue of more than 200 million euros in 2023, signalling revenue growth greater than 20%, one of the sources said.
For the 2022/2023 financial year, P&I anticipated sales to increase by over 10% from 172 million euros in the previous year, with an expected increase in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) in excess of 15% from 93 million euros, according to the company’s last results published in June 2022.
Hg acquired a majority stake in P&I from Permira for an enterprise value of 2 billion euros in 2019.
Prior to this, the company was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange from 1999 to 2014.
($1 = 0.9381 euros)
(Reporting by Emma-Victoria Farr in Frankfurt and Amy-Jo Crowley in London, editing by Anousha Sakoui and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)