{"id":590523,"date":"2026-04-22T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=590523"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:25:00","slug":"aaaand-its-gone-pe-shop-thoma-bravo-writes-off-over-5bn-from-2021-saas-firm-acquisition-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=590523","title":{"rendered":"Aaaand It’s Gone… PE Shop Thoma Bravo Writes Off Over $5BN From 2021 SaaS Firm Acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aaaand It’s Gone… PE Shop Thoma Bravo Writes Off Over $5BN From 2021 SaaS Firm Acquisition<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Not a great night for SaaS…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Given the eight straight days of gains for Software stocks<\/strong>, one could argue that the death of code-base companies was greatly exaggerated (cough -dead-cat bounce – cough)<\/em>, but not every boat is being lifted by this massive short-squeeze rebound<\/p>\n

JPMorgan Trader Brian Heavey said earlier that it “seems we are moving from ‘SAAS is dead’ to ‘maybe they can co-exist'”<\/strong><\/em>, but it appears one software firm is indeed ‘no more’.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In July 2021, Thoma Bravo took customer-experience (CX) software leader Medallia private<\/a> in a $6.4 billion all-cash leveraged buyout.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thoma Bravo and its co-investors contributed roughly $5 billion of equity, while Blackstone and other private-credit lenders provided $1.8 billion of debt.<\/p>\n

The deal reflected the era\u2019s sky-high software valuations and Thoma Bravo\u2019s aggressive playbook<\/strong> of buying mature SaaS platforms with heavy leverage.<\/p>\n

But…<\/p>\n

By 2026, the investment had become one of private equity\u2019s most visible busts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Medallia\u2019s growth stalled in a crowded CX market where survey-based platforms faced commoditization and slower enterprise spending.<\/p>\n

PE Insights reported two weeks ago<\/a> that debt servicing costs ballooned to nearly $300 million<\/strong> (carrying around $3 billion in total debt).<\/p>\n

Annual earnings hovered around just $200 million<\/strong> – insufficient to cover interest – leaving the company struggling to deleverage.<\/p>\n

Around a month ago, Barron’s reported<\/a> that lenders were under serious pressure as Blackstone, the lead creditor, repeatedly marked down its large loan position<\/strong>: from par to the high 80s in mid-2025, then to roughly 70 cents on the dollar by February 2026, with further declines reported into the 60s.<\/em><\/p>\n

Other lenders including Apollo and KKR followed suit.<\/p>\n

All of which brings us to today…<\/p>\n

Reuters reports that,<\/a> according to two people familiar with the matter, Thoma \u200bBravo is nearing an agreement to hand over software \u200cfirm Medallia to its lenders<\/strong>, wrapping up months of restructuring negotiations.<\/p>\n

The move will wipe out $5.1 billion \u200bin equity for Thoma Bravo<\/strong> and its co-investors.<\/p>\n

Medallia provides software that collects and analyzes customer and employee feedback for companies, and has like other software\/SaaS companies, seen its valuation \u200bhit in recent months over concerns that its services will eventually \u200cbe \u2060supplanted by artificial intelligence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Will this prompt markdowns across other SaaS firms in PE books? <\/strong>We suspect it might force some hands to admit the painful truth.<\/p>\n

With a literal tsunami of supply on its way this year – most notably Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX all pushing to IPO in 2026 at massive valuations – some investors may see parallels to the classic 2021-vintage risks exposed by Medallia today: overpayment at peak multiples, excessive leverage, and sector headwinds that private ownership could not fix. <\/em><\/p>\n

For Thoma Bravo and other large-scale investors, it stands as a cautionary tale of how quickly high-priced software bets can sour when growth assumptions prove overly optimistic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 04\/22\/2026 – 18:25<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aaaand It’s Gone… PE Shop Thoma Bravo Writes Off Over $5BN From 2021 SaaS Firm Acquisition Not a great night for SaaS… Given the eight straight days of gains for Software stocks, one could argue that the death of code-base companies was greatly exaggerated (cough -dead-cat bounce – cough), but not every boat is being… Continue reading Aaaand It’s Gone… PE Shop Thoma Bravo Writes Off Over $5BN From 2021 SaaS Firm Acquisition<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":590500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/590500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}