THL completes HighTower secondary, Comvest's D&S is up for sale, Q&A with Growth Catalyst Partners

The Wire

Dec. 4, 2020

Thomas H. Lee completes HighTower secondary, Comvest's D&S Community Services seeks buyer, Five Questions with Growth Catalyst Partners, Thoma Bravo looks to raise SPAC

Happy Friday!

The long hold: We're not only seeing more private equity investors selling partial stakes and reinvesting in certain businesses they aren't quite ready to let go of. As such, we’ve got some big secondaries news to wrap up the week.

Thomas H. Lee has closed its single-asset secondary sale of HighTower Advisors, through which the wealth advisor will move out of an older fund and into a continuation vehicle. Read PE Hub's brief. Interestingly, Goldman Sachs not only advised on the transaction alongside Evercore, but simultaneously participated in the process as a buyer.

That’s not all. Amid the successful closing the deal, Goldman has hired Alex Mejia from Lazard to build out its secondary market advisory platform, the firm confirmed for Buyouts. Check out Chris Witkowsky’s full report.

...Read the full Wire commentary on PE Hub.

And as always, write to me at springle@buyoutsinsider.com with any tips, feedback or just to say hello.

We hope you’re enjoying the new streamlined PE Hub Wire. For a more detailed version, we have launched a new premium version for our paying PE Hub subscribers that is ad-free and includes full editorial commentary and descriptions with each story. For more information about the Wire Premium, reach out to subscriptions@peimedia.com.

Note to Readers: It's that time of year ... for the 21st time, the editors of PE Hub and Buyouts honor exceptional buyouts with our Deal of the Year Awards.

Winners are chosen in seven categories: Deal of the Year, Large-Market Deal of the Year, Middle-Market Deal of the Year, Small-Market Deal of the Year, Turnaround of the Year, International Deal of the Year, and Secondaries Deal of the Year.

Go here for more information and to read about rules and methodology. Also check out past winners. Last year, New Mountain took the crown with its exit of Equian.

If you have additional questions, email Private Equity Editor Chris Witkowsky at cwitkowsky@buyoutsinsider.com.

Also of note (may require subscriptions)

SPAC: Thoma Bravo has engaged a bank to help raise a SPAC, which will pursue an acquisition target in the software and technology sector, Reuters reports.