Apollo SPAC and Vista Halt $15 Billion Merger Talks

Gillian Tan and Liana Baker
·1 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Vista Equity Partners’s talks to merge three of its companies with blank-check firm Apollo Strategic Growth Capital in a $15 billion transaction have been halted, according to people familiar with the matter.

Discussions about a merger featuring Vista’s Solera Holdings Inc., DealerSocket Inc. and Omnitracs stalled in recent days amid weak market conditions for technology companies, said some of the people, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. It isn’t clear when or if talks will be revived.

The Nasdaq Composite Index of more than 3,000 tech-related stocks has fallen 4% since Feb. 12 and has posted three weekly declines in that span. It’s still up 4.9% this year.

Amid a boom in issuance involving new SPACs and private investments in public equity, or PIPEs, some recent SPAC mergers have met a tepid response from investors. Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp. and Motion Acquisition Corp. closed Wednesday below the traditional SPAC IPO price of $10, after announcing mergers last week.

Bloomberg reported the expanded deal involving the trio of technology companies that service the auto industry earlier this month.

An Apollo representative declined to comment. A Vista spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Apollo Strategic Growth Capital, led by Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Patel, raised $817 million in an initial public offering last year. The blank-check company’s shares closed at $10.12 on Wednesday, giving it a market value of about $1 billion.

(Updates with SPAC deals in fourth paragraph.)

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