近年来，我一直惊讶于私募股权的摄取程度，参与其投资组合公司的采购和采购。在许多情况下，这使得PE公司与顾问合作;在选择其他人中，它甚至导致了内部共享服务资源，这些资源可以节省成本，这些资源在企业组合中提供成本。如果您很想了解更多关于私募股权公司在这一领域做些什么，您可以在主题上查看过去的花费帖子（hereandhere）。But it appears PE firms aren't limiting their enthusiasm to lining their pockets by improving the valuation of their portfolio companies through better spending. They're also increasingly buying into this market from an investment perspective.
麦迪逊迪尔伯恩最近的买断荒谬是市场上PE在市场上最近的兴趣水平之一之一。具有讽刺意味的是，与一些替代方案（即软件公司的收购，例如Versata的买断）相比，PE买断往往会导致现有客户的更大的创新和利益。例如，考虑如何通过投资以来的新领导和爆炸性的软件收入增长，在Marlin帮助将Emploris与爆炸性的软件收入增长相比，与他们的投资以来的其他人进行比较（见关于它的帖子here）。
KKR is also getting in on the procurement software game. The最近的visma买断, a Nordic specialist, highlights this growing trend. Interestingly, Visma's investors opted to sell a majority stake to KKR rather than test the public markets. To wit, Visma "was in the process of preparing itself for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), but KKR stepped in with an offer sufficiently attractive that the IPO was pre-empted." From a functional application and solution perspective, Visma delivers a basic back-office application suite (general ledger) as well as modular add-ons including P2P (focusing on eProcurement).
Within the Spend Management world, who else might be on the PE shopping list? Stay tuned as we offer our thoughts throughout the coming months. But perhaps most important, customers should remember that if their vendor is acquired by a private equity firm, recent track records suggest that new investors will do right by the user community versus killing off innovation and offering declining service levels.
Jason Busch
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