1 month ago
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Website builder Squarespace is no longer a publicly-traded company, after private equity firm Permira procured all remaining common stock in the firm.
Permira first revealed plans to acquire Squarespace back in May, offering shareholders in the NYSE-traded company $44 per share — this equated to an equity valuation of $6.6 billion, and an enterprise valuation of $6.9 billion. However, proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended that Squarespace shareholders reject the offer, on the basis that the transaction didn’t maximize the value for shareholders — particularly given that Squarespace’s financial outlook was strong.
And so Permira upped its offer last month to $46.50 per share, representing a valuation of around $7.2 billion. On Monday, Permira announced that it had successfully bought most of the shares and would be completing a second-step merger to acquire all outstanding shares from remaining shareholders who didn’t participate in the tender offer — and that step is now complete.
On Tuesday, Squarespace also completed the sale of its restaurant reservation service Tock to American Express, in a deal valued at $400 million.
Founded in 2004 by Anthony Casalena, Squarespace is a no-code platform for SMEs and freelancers to build websites, blogs and online stores. The company filed to go public in 2021, hitting a peak market cap of $8 billion — well below its peak private valuation of $10 billion. However, the company’s market cap plummeted to $2 billion in 2022, before soaring back up past the $5 billion mark off the back of strong earnings.
Permira’s winning bid represents a 36.4% premium over Squarespace’s 3-month average price leading up to the transaction announcement in May. It’s also one of the biggest take-private deals of 2024.
In the wake of today’s announcement, Permira said that Casalena has “rolled over a substantial majority” of his Squarespace equity rather than cashing it all out, meaning he remains one of his company’s biggest shareholders, with VC firms Accel and General Atlantic remaining what Casalena calls “meaningful investors.”
