By Milana Vinn
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The private equity owners of Procare Solutions are exploring a sale that could value the child-care management software provider at nearly $2 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.
Buyout firms TA Associates and Warburg Pincus have hired investment bank William Blair to advise Procare on its sale process that is expected to launch after Labor Day, the sources said, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential.
The auction is expected to attract interest from private equity firms, the sources said.
Procare generated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of about $70 million last year and expects cash flow to touch $100 million in 2023, the sources said.
Procare, TA Associates, Warburg Pincus and William Blair did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Medford, Oregon-based Procare is a provider of business management software, payments technology, and other technology services to the child-care industry. It counts more than 37,000 child care centers, pre-schools, daycare centers, and after-school programs and camps as its customers.
Procare also supplies its customers with hardware including biometric-enabled computers, fingerprint readers, electronic signature tablets, keyless entry systems, and card readers for payments.
TA Associates took a majority stake in Procare in May 2015. It sold a part of its stake in the company to Warburg Pincus in 2018.
Under its private equity owners, Procare has primarily grown through acquisitions of child-care software startups such as Cirrus Group LLC, KidReports, Kinderlime Inc, and SchoolLeader.
(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York, additional reporting by Amy-Jo Crowley in London; Editing by Anirban Sen and Stephen Coates)
