Strategy in TECH...
Multiple sources report – and I have confirmed – that stalwart screen maker Stewart Filmscreen has been acquired by Shackleton Equity Partners, a private equity company. The deal is said to have gone down just days ago and Stewart now has a new chairman, Mark Schelbert, who is also a managing director at Shackleton.
Tech Data, one of the largest technology distributors in the U.S. and globally, has been acquired by Apollo Global Management, a private equity powerhouse, in a deal valued at $5.4 billion. The deal announced today, is expected to close by mid-2020.
Last week’s Strata-gee story on the final liquidation of what remains of Thiel not only drew a huge number of readers, it also sent a big chunk of them on to the auctioneer’s website (McLemore Auctions). Many of those readers who journeyed to the auction were in search of a great deal on a good line of Thiel speakers. But then, in an unexpected twist, a source reached out to Strata-gee to offer a warning to those in search of a great deal on Thiel.
SnapAV announced today that General Atlantic, its private equity partner, has sold its ownership interest in the company to San Francisco-based Hellman and Friedman, another private equity group. The move, while unexpected, is not unusual in the world of private equity – especially in the case where a portfolio company transitions stages of growth that move it beyond the the investment strategy of the PE partner as compared to when the investment was initially made.
Reuters is reporting that the Best Buy board of directors has asked founder and former chairman Richard Schulze to name the private equity (PE) firms that he can line up to help him buy out Best Buy stock and take the company private. But reportedly Schulze is playing coy, saying only that there’s a “number of leading private equity firms” prepared to make a significant commitment.
