By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Bottomline Technologies stock (NASDAQ:EPAY) surged 15% Friday to hit the day’s high of $56.38, nearing the $57 a share price at which Thoma Bravo agreed to take it private.
The all-cash transaction values the payments-enabler at around $2.6 billion.
The deal is expected to close in the June quarter. The boards of the companies have approved the transaction.
Bottomline clocked total revenue of $471 million in the year ended June 30, up 7%.
The booming payments business is attracting several companies, given the breadth of business and scaling up it allows. As a result, private equity firms and large payments processors have been hunting for deals in the sector.
Corporations and banks use Bottomline's services for domestic and international payments, cash management, automated workflows for payment processing and bill review, and fraud detection, among others.
Thoma Bravo had more than $91 billion in assets under management as of September 30.
Some of the companies Thoma has deals to acquire this year include online survey firm Medallia (NYSE:MDLA) Inc MDLA, software security group Proofpoint (NASDAQ:PFPT) and online supply chain solutions provider QAD (NASDAQ:QADA) QADA.
Over the past 20 years, the private equity firm has acquired more than 325 companies representing over $155 billion in enterprise value.