Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American

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 ...

, founded in 1984 by

Warren Hellman F. Warren Hellman (July 25, 1934 – December 18, 2011) was an American investment banker and private equity investor, the co-founder of Hellman & Friedman, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. Hellman also co-founded Hellman, Ferri Inve ...

and

Tully Friedman Tully Friedman (born January 1942) is an American businessman.Friedman Fleischer & Lowe bi ...

, that makes investments primarily through

leveraged buyouts 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 loa ...

as well as

growth capital Growth capital (also called expansion capital and growth equity) is a type of private equity investment, usually a minority investment, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new mark ...

investments. H&F has focused its efforts on several core target industries including

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

professional services Professional services are occupations in the service sector requiring special training in the arts or sciences. Some professional services, such as architects, accountants, engineers, doctors, and lawyers require the practitioner to hold professi ...

and

information services Information Service(s), or information service(s) may refer to: * Information broker services, provided by a company which collects data for use by a third party * Information service, a term defined by the US Communications Act of 1934 * Informat ...

. The firm tends to avoid asset intensive or other industrial businesses (e.g., manufacturing, chemicals, transportation). H&F is based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, with 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 * '' ...

and

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 ...

History

Founding

Hellman & Friedman was founded in 1984 by

and

Tully Friedman Tully Friedman (born January 1942) is an American businessman.Friedman Fleischer & Lowe bi ...

. Before H&F, Hellman was a founding partner of Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates, which would later be renamed Matrix Management Company. Today, Matrix is among the most prominent

venture capital 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 ha ...

firms in the U.S. Before that, Hellman worked in

investment banking Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Gol ...

, where he served as president as well as head of the Investment Banking Division and Chairman of Lehman Corporation. Tully Friedman was formerly a managing director at

Salomon Brothers Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and the most profitable firm on Wall Street duri ...

. In 1997, Friedman left the firm to found

Friedman Fleischer & Lowe FFL Partners, LLC, previously known as Friedman Fleischer & Lowe, is an American private equity firm, founded in 1997 by Tully Friedman, Spencer Fleischer, David Lowe, and Christopher Masto. The firm makes investments primarily through leveraged ...

, a private equity firm also based in

Recent

As of 2011, H&F employed approximately 50 investment professionals, including 15 managing directors, 6 principals and 13 associates as well as senior advisors and general counsels. In August 2013, the firm acquired

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

's largest insurance broker, Hub International, for around $4.4 billion. In March 2014, the firm acquired

Renaissance Learning Renaissance Learning, Inc. (also known simply as Renaissance) is a software as a service and learning analytics company that makes cloud-based, Pre-K–12 educational software and adaptive assessments. Renaissance employs about 1,000 employees in n ...

, a firm providing assessment methods such as electronic tests that adapt questions in real time depending on how successfully the student is answering, for $1.1 billion in cash. In February 2015, it was announced that Hellman & Friedman were putting together a takeover bid for used car company Auto Trader, which could amount to an offer of £2 billion. On May 18, 2017, Hellman & Friedman made a A$2.9 billion bid for

Fairfax Media Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald' ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, starting a

bidding war A bid price is the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for some goods. It is usually referred to simply as the "bid". In bid and ask, the bid price stands in contrast to the ask price or "offer", and the difference between ...

with TPG Group for the company. In May 2016, H&F agreed to a deal to acquire the healthcare cost management company MultiPlan Inc. for about $7.5 billion. In June 2018, it was announced that Hellman & Friedman were taking a controlling interest in the security monitoring company,

SimpliSafe SimpliSafe is an American home security company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company produces and sells self-installed wireless security systems. History SimpliSafe was founded in 2006 by then-Harvard Business School students, Chad and E ...

. In February 2019, it was announced that Hellman & Friedman purchased

Ultimate Software Ultimate Software was an American multinational technology company that developed and sold UltiPro, a cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software system for businesses. Headquartered in Weston, Florida, the company was founded in 1990 by ...

for $11 billion, an all-cash transaction. Ultimate Software has since been combined with

Kronos Incorporated Kronos Incorporated was an American multinational workforce management and human capital management cloud provider headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, which employed more than 6,000 people worldwide. In February 2020, the com ...

, and rolled into the brand Ultimate Kronos Group. In December 2019, Hellman & Friedman acquired AutoScout24, a European automotive digital marketplace, for 2.9 billion euros ($3.2 billion)."Scout24 sells AutoScout24 to Hellman & Friedman,"
Reuters, 17 December 2019. In 2020, Hellman & Friedman joined Diligent Corporation's Modern Leadership Initiative and pledged to create five new board roles among its portfolio companies for racially diverse candidates. In July 2021, it was announced that Hellman & Friedman purchased At Home. In November 2021, H&F and

Bain Capital Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry se ...

agreed to buy

AthenaHealth Athenahealth (stylized as athenahealth) is a private American company that provides network-enabled services for healthcare and point-of-care mobile apps in the United States. The company was founded in 1997 in San Diego and is now headquarte ...

for $17 Billion.

Notable holdings

A core element in H&F's strategy is investing in "growth" opportunities whether in an industry sector or a specific company. H&F invests in a variety of structures, frequently making minority investments with only limited controls. Additionally, H&F has taken a number of unconventional steps to finance and close transactions, including arranging and syndicating the financing for several investments including

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...

and

Goodman Global Goodman Manufacturing is an American company operating as an independent subsidiary of Daikin Group, the world's largest manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning products and systems. The company, founded in 1975 and based in W ...

. Since closing its sixth

private equity fund A private equity fund (abbreviated as PE fund) is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity (and to a lesser extent debt) securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity ...

in 2007, H&F has been active in making new investments: *

DoubleClick DoubleClick Inc. was an advertisement company that developed and provided Internet ad serving services from 1995 until its acquisition by Google in March 2008. DoubleClick offered technology products and services that were sold primarily to adv ...

Gartmore Gartmore (Scottish Gaelic ''An Gart Mòr'') is a village in the Stirling council area, Scotland. It is a village with a view of the Wallace Monument in Stirling, almost 25 miles away. Formerly in Perthshire, it is one mile from the A81 Glasgo ...

Texas Genco Texas Genco was a power generation company that came about as part of the deregulated Texas electricity market and owned numerous power plants in the Houston area that serve area power needs. The Company was created in 2001 as part of the Tex ...

GCM Grosvenor GCM Grosvenor (Nasdaq: GCMG) is an American alternative asset management firm, with approximately $74 billion in assets under management and approximately 530 professionals as of 2023. GCM Grosvenor manages assets on behalf of a global client bas ...

Nielsen Company Nielsen Holdings plc is an American information, data and market measurement firm. Nielsen operates in over 100 countries and employs approximately 44,000 people worldwide. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and use ...

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

Internet Brands MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands is an American new media company based in El Segundo, California, United States, that operates online media, community, and e-commerce sites in vertical markets. The company also develops and licenses internet ...

* OpenLink * PPD * SSP Holdings * Web Reservations International ( Hostelworld) *

UKG Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) is an American multinational technology company with dual headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Weston, Florida. It provides workforce management and human resource management services. The company was founde ...

Investment funds

H&F invests through a series of private equity funds (structured as

limited partnerships A limited partnership (LP) is a form of partnership similar to a general partnership except that while a general partnership must have at least two general partners (GPs), a limited partnership must have at least one GP and at least one limited p ...

) and its investors include a variety of

pension funds A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income. Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and priva ...

, endowments and other

institutional investors An institutional investor is an entity which pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked co ...

: * 1984 — Hellman & Friedman I * 1991 — Hellman & Friedman II ($826 million) * 1995 — Hellman & Friedman III ($1.5 billion) * 2000 — Hellman & Friedman IV ($2.2 billion) * 2004 — Hellman & Friedman V ($3.5 billion) * 2007 — Hellman & Friedman VI ($8.4 billion) * 2011 — Hellman & Friedman VII ($8.8 billion) * 2014 — Hellman & Friedman VIII ($10.9 billion) *2018 — Hellman & Friedman IX ($16.5 billion) *2021 — Hellman & Friedman X ($24.4 billion) :''Source:

Preqin Preqin is a privately held London-based investment data company that provides financial data and insight on the alternative assets market, as well as tools to support investment in alternatives. By the company's own definition, its data encompa ...

References

External links

*
Hellman & Friedman: The Deal Journal PE Firm of the Quarter
(WSJ.com, 2008) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellman and Friedman Private equity firms of the United States Companies based in San Francisco Financial services companies established in 1984 Hellman familybr>AI based human capital management solutions