CPA Global sold for £2.4bn
Private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners has agreed to buy IP services provider CPA Global for £2.4 billion ($3.1 billion).
The Los Angeles-based firm made the agreement after CPA Global’s owner Cinven announced plans to sell the company and hired Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as advisers in April.
Cinven acquired CPA Global in 2012 from Intermediate Capital Group and the founder shareholders for around £950 million, backed with £555 million of debt financing.
Reports added that an official announcement on the deal is expected later today, August 29.
Leonard Green has previously invested in 62 companies, and owns a 25% stake in Topshop, the flagship label of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia fashion empire.
CPA Global, established in 1969, provides “ways to manage IP services more efficiently” and has 23 offices across four continents and 12 countries, according to its website.
Sister site LSIPR reported in March that CPA Global had agreed to pay $5.6 million as part of a settlement agreement in a class action lawsuit.
In July last year, Run Them Sweet, a US medical diagnostic company, filed the lawsuit alleging it was overcharged for foreign patent renewal fees by CPA Global.
CPA Global’s $3.1 billion valuation is less than the $3.6 billion that Thomson Reuters agreed for the sale of its IP and science business to Canada-based Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia, based in Hong Kong.
The business, which included trademark research and protection company CompuMark and online brand protection company MarkMonitor, was sold for nearly $3.6 billion and renamed Clarivate Analytics in October last year.
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