The number of (non-VC) DACH enterprise software M&A transactions we registered in the last six months was almost 40% below the level of the previous year. Among the “founder-shareholder sales,” we would like to highlight the sale of Diamant Software to HG Capital and the sale of Hamburger Software to Infoniqa/Warburg Pincus, both to private equity firms. Geographically, the decline was observed in all three DACH countries.
€700 million acquisition of PSI by Warburg Pincus: The acquisition of shares in the listed PSI Software by Warburg Pincus for over €700 million was, in our view, an important benchmark during this period. The adjusted EBITDA multiple of over 30x for a moderately growing, predominantly on-premise software company that was recovering from a cyberattack is remarkable (while the valuation based on recurring revenue of ~6x was well within the expected range).
