Breaking News: Coupa announces definitive agreement to be acquired by Thoma Bravo

Giant of the Business Spend Management (BSM) world, Coupa Software, this morning announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Thoma Bravo, one of the largest private equity firms in the world. “This is an all-cash transaction with an enterprise value of $8.0 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Coupa will become a privately held company,” explains the press release.

“Thoma Bravo emerged from a competitive bidding process to announce its forthcoming acquisition of Coupa,” said Jason Busch, Spend Matters founder and CEO. “There is a range of levers to create enterprise value for Coupa under private equity ownership, and Thoma Bravo already has many adjacent technology assets which could prove interesting as part of a calculus, but the core source-to-pay market no doubt remains highly attractive for investors and technology buyers in this period of economic uncertainty.”

There is also a significant minority investment from a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). Under the terms of the agreement, Coupa shareholders will receive $81.00 per share in cash, which represents a 77% premium to Coupa’s closing stock price on November 22, 2022.

Chairman and CEO at Coupa, Rob Bernshteyn, said:

“For more than a decade, we’ve been building an incredible Business Spend Management Community and have proudly cemented our position as the market-leading platform in our category. We’re looking forward to partnering with Thoma Bravo and accelerating our vision to digitally transform the Office of the CFO. While our ownership may change, our values do not. Every one of us at Coupa will continue to put our customers at the center of everything we do and help them maximize the value of every dollar they spend.”

“Coupa has created and led the large and growing Business Spend Management category. We’ve followed the company’s success for many years and have been impressed by its consistent track record of delivering high levels of value for its global customer base,” said Holden Spaht, a Managing Partner at Thoma Bravo. “We look forward to partnering with Rob and the rest of the management team to keep investing in the company’s product strategy while driving growth both organically and through M&A.”

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2023, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Coupa shareholders and the receipt of required regulatory approvals. Upon completion Coupa’s common stock will no longer be listed on any public market. The company will continue to operate under the Coupa name and brand.

Jason Busch and our analyst team will have plenty to discuss around the deal, its implications for the market and the value levers mentioned earlier.

Watch this space, but read more in the the press release here for now.

Spend Matters has covered Coupa extensively on Spend Matters PRO and in our SolutionMap rankings over the years, for example:

Coupa’s journey from Business Spend Management to Supply Chain Management — Assessing progress on seven key dimensions

Coupa launches Community.ai to help turn its vast customer network and data into actionable insights

Coupa launches unified travel-and-expense suite to expand its business spend management (BSM) coverage

And find out how Coupa stacks up against its competition in our Head-to-Head SolutionMap data-based comparisons here.

Coupa’s third-quarter fiscal year 2023 financial results can be found here: Investor Relations section of the Company’s website.