Stone Point Capital LLC and Insight Partners said Thursday they agreed to buy CoreLogic for $80 a share, or about $6 billion. The deal represents a 51% premium to CoreLogic’s share price in June before the activists showed up, the firms said.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday that such a deal was near.
It is a surprising outcome after the focus in the closely watched sale process had settled largely on two other competing suitors: CoreLogic rival CoStar Group Inc., which had made a higher, all-stock bid; and private-equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC.
But at least one more twist may await.
A spokesperson for CoStar said Thursday the company was studying all of its options. They include a new bid, a proxy fight or walking away from the deal, according to people familiar with the matter. The window to launch a proxy fight at CoreLogic closes in roughly a week after it was extended two weeks beyond Jan. 28.
In a sign investors were anticipating the possibility of such a move, CoreLogic shares were trading above the private-equity firms’ bid Thursday afternoon, at $81.14.
CoreLogic launched a sales process after activist investors Senator Investment Group LP and Cannae Holdings Inc. offered to buy the company for $65 a share and nominated directors to its board last year. Three of the directors later joined CoreLogic’s board after shareholders voted to add them in November.
CoreLogic is one of the largest residential real-estate-data companies, providing property data used by real-estate professionals, financial institutions and consumers. Rivals include Zillow Group Inc., Redfin Corp. and Realtor.com, which is operated by Journal parent News Corp.
Acquisition activity has picked up as digitization sweeps the homebuying market. Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to buy property-management-software provider RealPage Inc. for $9.6 billion in December.
Stone Point Capital, based in Greenwich, Conn., and headed by Chuck Davis, primarily invests in businesses in the financial-services sector. Insight Partners is based in New York and focuses on software companies. Deven Parekh is its managing director.
Stone Point had previously been working with Warburg Pincus before Insight Partners got involved, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Evercore was financial adviser to CoreLogic, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP was its legal adviser. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Wells Fargo Securities LLC were financial advisers to Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners. Kirkland & Ellis was legal adviser to Stone Point Capital, and Willkie Farr and Gallagher was legal adviser to Insight Partners.