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(Bloomberg) -- Thoma Bravo sold its remaining stake in Nasdaq Inc. for proceeds of about $3.4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
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The private equity firm divested around 43 million shares, or about 7.4% of the company, in unregistered block trades on May 7 and May 13, the people said. Thoma Bravo worked with JPMorgan Chase & Co. on the sale, they said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
A US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on May 9, 2025 shows that an affiliate of Thoma Bravo sold 17.3 million shares for $77.90 per share, and had 25.5 million shares remaining. On Tuesday, Thoma Bravo sold the last of its shares to JPMorgan for $80.68 each, the people said.
In a block trade, the bank or syndicate of banks buy the shares from the seller and then re-offer them to investors at a slightly higher price.
The trades cap a lucrative investment for Thoma Bravo, which received a 14.9% stake in the exchange operator as part of a $10.5 billion cash-and-stock sale of software provider Adenza in 2023. The transaction was a key element of Nasdaq Chair and Chief Executive Officer Adena Friedman’s plan to diversify Nasdaq’s business into financial technology, and made Thoma Bravo its second largest shareholder at the time.
Nasdaq shares rose 0.3% to $81.28 each on Thursday in New York, valuing the company at about $46.7 billion.
Private equity firms have been under increasing pressure to return money to their clients, as dealmaking remains muted. Thoma Bravo managed to take enterprise security software company SailPoint Inc. public in February in an upsized initial public offering, weeks before volatility sparked by tariffs brought IPOs to a near halt.
The 85.6 million Nasdaq shares Thoma Bravo received were estimated at $55.49 each at the time, the people said, valuing the stake at $4.75 billion.
Thoma Bravo began selling down its Nasdaq holdings in 2024 with a 41.6 million share block raising about $2.8 billion, a filing at the time shows. The three block trades, generating nearly $6.2 billion for Thoma Bravo, have resulted in a profit of about $1.4 billion versus the original stake, according to Bloomberg calculations.
The May 7 block was re-offered to investors in a range of $78.20 to $78.57 per share, a different person said. The May 13 block was offered at around $81 per share, the person said.