Insight Partners joins Francisco Partners as NMI investor -sources

NMI Holdings

09/09/2021 13:00

By David French
    NEW YORK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Private equity firm Insight
Partners has agreed to acquire about a 40% stake in NMI, a
payments platform owned by buyout firms including Francisco
Partners, according to people familiar with the matter.
    The deal values NMI at around $1.55 billion, including debt,
and will reduce Francisco Partners' stake in the company to
around 40%, the sources said. Insight Partners and Francisco
Partners will share control of the company, the sources added.
    Another existing investor in NMI, buyout firm Great Hill
Partners, and the company's management will own the remaining
equity.
    The sources requested anonymity ahead of an official
announcement expected as early as Thursday.
    NMI processes more than $150 billion of payments annually,
in-store and digitally, for over 250,000 merchants. Valuations
for such companies have soared as more people carry out
transactions online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    The deal values NMI at more than four times what the
Schaumburg, Illinois-headquartered company was worth when
Francisco Partners invested in it in 2017, one of the sources
said.
    It adds to a streak of lucrative investments for Francisco
Partners. The firm recorded a return of more than two times its
original investment when Paysafe Ltd  PSFE.N , an online
payments company it invested in, merged with a blank-check
acquisition firm earlier this year at a valuation of around $9
billion.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2IN2V0
    In July, Francisco Partners agreed to sell video streaming
provider LiveU to buyout firm Carlyle Group Inc  CG.O , a deal
in which it stands to make five times its original investment,
while in June it took online legal services purveyor
LegalZoom.com Inc  LZ.O  public in a $535.4 million IPO, which
valued the business at six times its initial outlay.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2OC46G
    Insight Partners has made a number of investments in the
payments sector in companies such as PayIt, which processes
payments for U.S. state and local governments, and
Africa-focused Flutterwave. It is also an investor in
Checkout.com, one of Europe's most valuable financial technology
companies.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2L63EH  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nFWN2JN0MF

 (Reporting by David French in New York; Editing by Leslie
Adler)
 ((davidj.french@thomsonreuters.com;))