Crunching the Data on TA Associates’ $760M FD Technologies Deal
Plus: We outline portco M&A and exits from last week.
New KX.
TA Associates is buying a majority interest in FD Technologies plc, the London-listed parent company of analytics platform KX. Post-deal, existing shareholders will retain a meaningful minority interest.
At £24.50 per share, the deal values FD Technologies at approximately £570 million ($760 million). The figure represents a 27 percent premium to FD Technologies’ unaffected closing share price of £19.28 on May 6, 2025, and a 51 percent premium to the 12‑month average price of £16.24 per share.
The deal follows FD Technologies’ recent decision to sell its consulting unit, First Derivatives, for £205 million in order to streamline into a pure‑play enterprise software business, with KX as its crown jewel.
TA-da!
It’s not TA’s first foray into enterprise software.
In March 2017, TA Associates acquired ITRS Group — a real-time monitoring and analytics software provider — from The Carlyle Group for an undisclosed amount.
By 2021, TA sold a majority stake in ITRS (retaining a minority position) to Montagu Private Equity for $700 million. The firm still maintains a stake today.
Between 2017 and 2021, TA Associates grew ITRS from 170 global clients to 3,000+. The firm also expanded ITRS’s industry footprint across telecom, healthcare, and trading infrastructure.
How’d they accomplish it?
Product expansion via acquisition: The firm grew its suite of offerings by buying competitor SaaS firms, such as its 2020 purchase of Dutch analytics platform Uptrends.
Market expansion: TA helped diversify ITRS’s revenue base beyond its traditional capital markets clients into hedge funds, trading venues, telecom, and healthcare verticals.
Copy-paste.
TA will likely aim to apply the ITRS playbook to KX, particularly by pushing into new verticals and augmenting the product suite via investment in AI. But the situation is more complex here. FD Technologies retains a stake in KX, potentially limiting TA’s operational control.
Beyond that, challenging macro conditions such as high interest rates and increasingly cautious enterprise tech spending may hinder TA’s stewardship.
TA Associates did not respond to request for comment.
PE portcos also saw some full and partial exits last week, as well as some exits-to-be:
Waystar announced plans to buy Iodine Software, an AI‑driven clinical intelligence provider for healthcare payment automation, from Advent International for $1.25 billion. Advent acquired a major stake in Iodine in 2021 (valuing it at over $1 billion), and will retain equity in the new entity under an 18‑month lock‑up; this represents a full 100 percent sale.
Goldman Sachs Alternatives agreed to acquire Liquid Environmental Solutions, a U.S. provider of non‑hazardous liquid waste management services, from Audax, which has owned LES since late 2017; financial terms for the sale were not disclosed.
NIQ Global Intelligence, majority-owned by Advent International (since the 2021 acquisition at $3 billion) and minority-owned by KKR, raised $1.05 billion in its U.S. IPO at $21 per share, valuing the business at $6.1 billion to $6.35 billion. Advent retained 52 percent and KKR 10 percent ownership post-IPO, marking a partial liquidity event.
Bridgepoint and Partners Group sold their respective majority and minority stakes in Vermaat, a Dutch hospitality provider, at an enterprise valuation of €1.5 billion ($1.76 billion) to Compass Group.
Meanwhile, portco M&A was in full swing:
Apollo-backed HarbourView Equity Partners, an alternative asset manager focused on media and entertainment IP, acquired a stake in the master recording and publishing income streams from Kelly Clarkson for an unknown sum.
WCAS’s GovCIO, a government IT and digital services contractor, bought SoldierPoint Digital Health, a provider of military-focused health tech tools, for an undisclosed amount.
EC Waste, the largest vertically integrated solid waste services company in Puerto Rico and a portfolio company of UK-based PE firm 3i Group, acquired ARB Waste Services, a local solid waste collection company, marking its third acquisition since 3i bought it in 2021. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Onecom, a UK-based business telecom and connectivity provider backed by Ares and LDC (a PE firm affiliated with Lloyds Bank, invested since 2019), acquired Gradwell Communications, which specializes in cloud-based voice solutions for small businesses. The deal comes after Onecom was restructured at the beginning of this year and is the company’s thirteenth acquisition since 2020. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IQ-EQ, an investor services firm backed by Astorg (which acquired a majority stake in the firm in 2016 and rolled it into a continuation vehicle in 2022), bought Gordian Capital, an APAC-based fund administration provider, for an unknown amount.
And there were some key people moves:
Urgent care operator Xpress Wellness, backed by PE firm Goldman Sachs, appointed Joe Alegre as chief financial officer. Alegre was most recently the CFO of another private equity-backed healthcare company, the Sheridan Capital-backed Oral Surgery Partners. Brown, meanwhile
Roark Capital’s Subway named Jonathan Fitzpatrick, the ex-Burger King COO, as its next CEO.
Thanks for reading!