Silver Lake is an American global
private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
focused on investments in technology, technology-enabled and related industries. Founded in 1999, the firm is one of the largest technology investors in the world. Its investment holdings have included
Airbnb
Airbnb, Inc. ( ), based in San Francisco, California, operates an online marketplace focused on short-term homestays and experiences. The company acts as a broker and charges a commission from each booking. The company was founded in 2008 b ...
,
Alibaba Group,
Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.
In November 2018, ...
,
Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
,
Credit Karma
Credit Karma is an American multinational personal finance company founded in 2007, which has been a brand of Intuit since December 2020. It is best known as a free credit and financial management platform, but its features also include monitor ...
,
City Football Group
City Football Group Limited (CFG) is a holding company that administers association football clubs. The group is owned by three organisations; of which 81% is majority owned by Newton Investment and Development LLC, 18% by the American firm Sil ...
,
Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Round Rock, Texas. It was formed as a result of the September 2016 merger of Dell and EMC Corporation (which later became Dell EMC).
Dell's products inc ...
,
Endeavor,
Expedia Group
Expedia Group, Inc. is an American online travel shopping company for consumer and small business travel. Its websites, which are primarily Travel website#Fare aggregators and metasearch engines, travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch eng ...
,
Fanatics
Fanaticism (from the Latin adverb ''fānāticē'' ren-''fānāticus''; enthusiastic, ecstatic; raging, fanatical, furious is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal or an obsessive enthusiasm.
Definitions
Philosopher George Santayana ...
, First Advantage, Global Blue,
GoDaddy
GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.
, GoDaddy has more than 21 million customers and over 6,600 employees worldwide. The co ...
,
Jio
Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, doing business as Jio, is an Indian telecommunications company and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It operates a national LTE network with coverage across all 2 ...
, Lightbox,
Motorola Solutions
Motorola Solutions, Inc., is an American video equipment, telecommunications equipment, software, systems and services provider that succeeded Motorola, Inc., following the spinoff of the mobile phone division into Motorola Mobility in 2011. The ...
,
New Zealand Rugby
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is the governing body of rugby union in New Zealand. It was founded in 1892 as the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU), 12 years after the first provincial unions in New Zealand. In 1949 it became an affiliate to t ...
,
NortonLifeLock
Gen Digital Inc. (formerly Symantec Corporation and NortonLifeLock) is a multinational software company co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company provides cybersecurity software and services. Gen is a Fortune 50 ...
, Red Ventures,
Sabre Corporation
Sabre Corporation is a travel technology company based in Southlake, Texas. It is the largest global distribution systems provider for air bookings in North America. American Airlines founded the company in 1960, and it was spun off in 2000.
I ...
,
Skype
Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...
,
SoFi
Sofi may refer to:
*Sofi (mascot), the Mascot for 2010 ISF Women's World Championship
*Sofi Marinova (born 1975), Bulgarian singer
SOFI may refer to:
*Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore
* Spray-On Foam Insulation, used on the Space Shutt ...
,
GLG,
Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology Holdings plc is an American data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology and commenced business in 1979. Since 2010, the company has been incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquart ...
,
SolarWinds
SolarWinds Corporation is an American company that develops software for businesses to help manage their networks, systems, and information technology infrastructure. It is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with sales and product development offi ...
, TEG,
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Unity Technologies
Unity Software Inc. (doing business as Unity Technologies) is a video game software development company based in San Francisco. It was founded in Denmark in 2004 as Over the Edge Entertainment (OTEE) and changed its name in 2007. Unity Technolo ...
,
Waymo
Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google self-driving car project, is an American autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google.
Waymo opera ...
, Weld North Education,
WP Engine,
Vacasa
Vacasa is an international vacation rental management company based in Portland, Oregon. It provides property management services for over 35,000 vacation rentals in North America, Belize, and Costa Rica. Vacasa manages properties in 34 U.S. stat ...
, the
A-League
A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...
football competition in Australia, and ZPG. Silver Lake is headquartered in
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
, and has offices in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
.
History
Silver Lake was founded in 1999, at the height of the late 1990s
technology boom to make
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
investments in
mature technology
A mature technology is a technology that has been in use for long enough that most of its initial faults and inherent problems have been removed or reduced by further development. In some contexts, it may also refer to technology that has not se ...
companies as opposed to the
startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
s pursued actively by
venture capitalist
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...
s. Among the firm's founders were Jim Davidson who had led the Technology Investment Banking business at
Hambrecht & Quist
Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q) was an investment bank based in San Francisco, California noted for its focus on the technology and Internet sectors. H&Q was founded by Bill Hambrecht and George Quist in California, in 1968.
H&Q was an early player in ...
;
David Roux
David Roux is an American businessman, technology investor and philanthropist. He co-founded Silver Lake Partners in 1999 with Jim Davidson, Glenn Hutchins and Roger McNamee. In 2020, David founded BayPine LP with Anjan Mukherjee.
Early life an ...
who had an operational and entrepreneurial background having served as chairman and CEO of Liberate Technologies, executive vice president at
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...
and senior vice president at
Lotus Development
Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018.
Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2- ...
;
Roger McNamee
Roger McNamee (born May 2, 1956) is an American businessman, investor, venture capitalist and musician. He is the founding partner of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners. Prior to co-founding the firm, McNamee co-founded private equity f ...
, as the representative of Integral Capital Partners, a hybrid investment fund that made investments in publicly traded companies and venture capital investments in early-stage startups; and
Glenn Hutchins
Glenn Hutchins is an American businessman and investor. He is a private equity investor focused on the technology sector, chairman of North Island and co-founder of Silver Lake Partners.
Career
After studying at The Lawrenceville School and grad ...
, who came from
Blackstone Group
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...
and served as a Special Advisor on economic and healthcare policy in the early
Clinton Administration
Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office following a decisive election victory over Re ...
and previously worked at
Thomas H. Lee Partners
Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. is an American private equity firm based in Boston investing in middle market growth companies across financial technology and services, healthcare and technology & business solutions.
History
Founded in 1974 by ...
.
[Wall Street's New Alchemist (Glenn Hutchins Profile)](_blank)
BusinessWeek
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
, August 8, 2005
The firm raised its first fund, Silver Lake Partners, with $2.3 billion of investor commitments. Silver Lake's first fund was among the best performing funds of its vintage.
The firm's second fund, Silver Lake Partners II was raised in 2004 with $3.6 billion of commitments.
The firm's third fund, Silver Lake Partners III was raised in 2007 with $9.6 billion of commitments. Also in 2007, the firm launched a
middle-market investment business, Silver Lake Sumeru, hiring Ajay Shah and the former investment team of Shah Capital Partners. Sumeru completed fundraising for its debut fund in 2008 with $1.1 billion of capital.
In 2011, Silver Lake Kraftwerk was launched to provide growth capital to later-stage companies in technology and tech-enabled businesses across the operations, energy, and resources industries.
In 2013, the firm raised its fourth fund, Silver Lake Partners IV, which closed in 2013 with $10.3 billion in committed capital.
In 2017, the firm raised its fifth fund, Silver Lake Partners V, which closed at $15 billion of commitments. Jim Davidson retired from the managing partner committee.
[
In September 2020, it was announced that Silver Lake was having negotiations to invest over $1 billion in Indian retail company ]Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail is an Indian retail company and a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. Founded in 2006, it is the largest retailer in India in terms of revenue. Its retail outlets offer foods, groceries, apparel, footwear, toys, home improvement ...
.
In 2021, Silver Lake purchased a minority 33.3% stake in the Australian Professional Leagues
The Australian Professional Leagues, commonly abbreviated to the APL, and sometimes referred to as the A-Leagues, are the governing body for the A-League Men, A-League Women, A-League Youth and E-League. Since their formation, they have been most ...
, otherwise known as the APL. The group is responsible for organising Australia's national association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
leagues, being the A-League Men
A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...
, A-League Women
A-League Women (known as the Liberty A-League for sponsorship reasons), formerly the W-League, is the top-division women's soccer league in Australia. The W-League was established in 2008 by Football Australia (then known as Football Federatio ...
and A-League Youth
A-League Youth, formerly known as the National Youth League and Y-League, is an Australian national soccer youth developmental and under-21s league, founded by Football Federation Australia and now run by the Australian Professional Leagues. Th ...
. Silver Lake has estimated the value of the APL and its affiliate holdings at over US$300 million.
Key personnel
In December 2019, Silver Lake appointed Egon Durban and Greg Mondre as Co-CEOs and promoted Joe Osnoss to managing partner. Silver Lake announced Ken Hao as chairman and Mike Bingle vice chairman and managing partner emeritus, with the launch of Silver Lake Partners VI.
Investments
Since 1999, Silver Lake made investments through leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loan ...
transactions, minority growth investments and private investment in public equity
A private investment in public equity, often called a PIPE deal, involves the selling of publicly traded common shares or some form of preferred stock or convertible security to private investors. It is an allocation of shares in a public company n ...
(PIPE) investments.
The following table details some of Silver Lake's private equity investments:
Investment strategies
Silver Lake operates through three primary businesses, all focused on technology investments:
* ''Silver Lake Partners'' makes private equity investments in large-cap technology and tech-enabled companies. Silver Lake Partners comprises the bulk of the firm's assets under management.[Silver Lake's New Four Amigos](_blank)
Dealmaker, September, 2007
* ''Silver Lake Alpine'' provides structured equity and debt investments in technology and technology-enabled companies.
* ''Silver Lake Waterman'' provides growth capital, via a proprietary growth debt product, to later-stage growth companies in technology and technology-enabled industries.
Controversy
After the sale of Skype
Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...
to Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
in 2011, Silver Lake was accused of unfairly depriving Skype employees of an options windfall.[Why Some Skypers Are Seeing Red](_blank)
Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, June 23, 2011 At issue was a clause in the Skype employee stock option grant agreement. The repurchase right gave Skype the authority to buy back shares at the grant price, when an employee left the company, even when those shares were vested.
References
External links
Silver Lake
(company website)
{{Private equity firms
Financial services companies of the United States
Financial services companies established in 1999
Companies based in Menlo Park, California
1999 establishments in California
Private equity firms
Private equity firms of the United States