WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Cvent, a northern Virginia event planning company founded by Reggie Aggarwal, is being purchased by the San Francisco-based private equity firm Vista Equity Partners for $1.65 billion, a whopping 69 percent higher than the company’s market capital.
Vista intends to take the company private immediately after purchase, whose shares were trading for $21.30 at market close last Friday. Coincidentally, the purchase was announced the same day. The sale is expected to be closed by the end of the third quarter of 2016.
“We are pleased to announce this transaction that provides a significant premium for Cvent stockholders,” Aggarwal said. “This milestone is the next chapter in our 17-year history. With Vista’s financial strength to invest in Cvent now and in the future, we will be better positioned to deliver innovative solutions that transform the meetings and events industry, and to offer employees new opportunities for career growth.”
According to a press release by Cvent, it will be an all-cash deal. Vista will acquire 100 percent of the company’s outstanding shares of common stock for the aforementioned sale price of $1.65 billion. Current Cvent shareholders will receive $36 in cash per share, which represents the 69 percent difference of the company’s closing price on April 15.
Cvent has a global workforce of 2,00 employees and a customer base of more than 15,000.
Aggarwal, an attorney by profession, founded the company in 1999 using his own savings. Other investors in the company included his parents and less than a handful of co-founders. During the dotcom boom, his company raised nearly $20 million, however, after 9/11, the company suffered a rough patch. At the time, with only $400,000 in the bank, he had to lay off 80 percent of the company’s employees.
Aggarwal didn’t take a salary for three years, and lived in the basement of his parents home.
“We went back to the basics,” he told the Washington Business Journal in a 2014 interview. “Hire the best people, build the best products, and focus on your customers.”
Going back to basics is exactly what the company needed — in 2011, Cvent raised nearly $140 million in a first round of funding, and two years later during its IPO, it raised another $135 million.
WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — Cvent, a northern Virginia event planning company founded by Reggie Aggarwal, is being purchased by the San Francisco-based private equity firm Vista Equity Partners for $1.65 billion, a whopping 69 percent higher than the company’s market capital.
