Haveli, General Atlantic to buy software firm Certinia for nearly $1 billion

By Milana Vinn and Anirban Sen

(Reuters) -An investment group led by private-equity firm Haveli Investments has agreed to buy business software vendor Certinia from Advent International in a deal that sources said was valued at nearly $1 billion including debt.

The companies did not disclose the financial details of the transaction in their statement. Reuters first reported about the deal earlier in the day.

Haveli, which was launched by former Vista Equity Partners president Brian Sheth, and General Atlantic will buy Advent's majority stake in Certinia as well as a minority stake held by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV).

Salesforce, which owns less than 10% of Certinia, will roll over its stake as part of the deal.

General Atlantic and Advent declined to comment on the deal value. Representatives of Certinia, TCV and Salesforce did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

San Jose, California-based Certinia is a provider of enterprise resource planning software and counts several top corporations, including Siemens, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco Systems and Philips, among its clients.

Austin, Texas-based Haveli has invested in some gaming ventures since it was launched by Sheth in 2021. The Certinia deal marks the first major transaction for Haveli since its inception.

Haveli has launched a fund seeking more than $3 billion for software deals, which will include this one.

Last year, Apollo Global Management invested $500 million in Haveli's investment funds as part of a strategic partnership that would give Haveli access to Apollo's resources and help it scale up.

Advent first invested in Certinia in 2014 when the company was known as FinancialForce. It rebranded to Certinia this year.

(Reporting by Milana Vinn and Anirban Sen in New York; Editing by Jamie Freed and Anil D'Silva)