- Thoma Bravo just scored $2.3 billion from Owl Rock to support its purchase of Calypso Technology.
- The unique loan, known as a unitranche, is the largest-ever of its type in the US credit markets.
- The financing underscores the growth of private debt funds, which are keen to deploy billions.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Thoma Bravo has gone down the route of private credit to fund its acquisition of fintech Calypso Technology, and in the process, has come out the other end with a record-setting transaction.
The technology-focused private equity firm nabbed a $2.3 billion loan from asset manager and direct lender Owl Rock, according to three sources familiar with the financing. The financing, known as a unitranche loan, is the largest-ever in the US credit market.
Thoma Bravo inked the deal to acquire Calypso Technology from private investment firms Bridgepoint and Summit Partners in March for $3.75 billion.
Thoma Bravo’s decision to tap Owl Rock, meanwhile, is a further sign of how much private credit funds have grown. The sheer size of the facility also underscores that direct lenders are capable of writing larger checks for acquisitions and compete for deals that are typically funded in the high-yield bond and leveraged loan markets.
A spokesperson for Thoma Bravo declined to comment.
Earlier this week, Insider reported that private markets are sitting on roughly $7.4 trillion in assets under management, while private-credit funds have raised more than $310 billion since 2019. Now, as the global economy reopens from its pandemic-induced slumber, these fund managers are ready to put their mountains of cash to work.
Owl Rock’s latest financing surpasses a $1.6 billion unitranche loan from fellow direct lender Golub Capital to MRI Software in February last year. Golub said it increased this same unitranche for MRI to more than $2 billion in September.
Unitranches, which rarely stray beyond $500 million, take a bunch of different loans and combine them into one portion of debt. The interest rate on that debt is blended between the individual loan that pays the highest rate and the individual loan that pays the least interest.
Bridgepoint and Summit bought Calypso in 2016. Goldman Sachs, UniCredit, Credit Agricole, Mizuho, and the Bank of Ireland provided the debt financing at the time, according to sources.
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Calypso provides cloud-based software for the capital markets, central banking, and treasury services, among others.
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