Golden Gate Capital Completes Acquisition of Ex Libris Global Holdings, Inc.
San Francisco, CA (December 7, 2012) – Golden Gate Capital today announced it has successfully completed its acquisition of Ex Libris Global Holdings, a worldwide leader in the provision of library automation solutions, from Leeds Equity Partners. Under the new ownership, Ex Libris will remain an independent business based in Jerusalem, run by the current management team. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“Ex Libris exemplifies the type of business in which we seek to invest,” said Prescott Ashe, Managing Director of Golden Gate Capital. “The Company is a market leader in delivering cloud-based knowledge management applications with a best-in-class leadership team and significant growth opportunities. Golden Gate Capital’s perpetual fund structure will enable us to partner with Ex Libris management over the long-term to further expand the Company’s market presence, continue to develop world-class products, and build the business over time.”
“Ex Libris is proud to join Golden Gate Capital, whose software portfolio represents, on a consolidated revenue basis, the sixth largest enterprise software company globally,” commented Matti Shem Tov, Ex Libris Group President and CEO. “Golden Gate Capital’s positive assessment of Ex Libris reaffirms our customers’ and management’s confidence in the strength of the Company, its products, and its strategy. Golden Gate Capital’s deep technology experience and financial resources will support our continued growth as we carry on developing our software and data services and extending our geographic reach.”
Wells Fargo Bank and Guggenheim Corporate Funding, LLC served as lead arrangers on the debt financing. Jefferies & Company acted as exclusive financial advisor to Ex Libris.
About Ex Libris
Ex Libris is the leading provider of cloud-based and on-premise content and knowledge management software solutions for academic and research institutions. As the only developer and distributor of a comprehensive suite of electronic, digital and print content management software, Ex Libris provides products with robust functionality, serving both the current and developing content management needs of academic and research libraries. Ex Libris maintains an impressive customer base of over 5,300 institutions in 80 countries. For more information, visit www.exlibrisgroup.com.
About Golden Gate Capital
Golden Gate Capital is a San Francisco-based private equity investment firm with approximately $12 billion of capital under management. Golden Gate Capital is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams to invest in change-intensive, growth businesses. The firm targets investments where there is a demonstrable opportunity to significantly enhance a company’s value. The principals of Golden Gate Capital have a long and successful history of investing with management partners across a wide range of industries and transaction types. Other notable software investments sponsored by Golden Gate Capital include Infor, Lawson, Attachmate, Novell, Aspect Software, Micro Focus, Plant CML, DataDirect, Escalate and Symon. For more information, visit www.goldengatecap.com.