Private equity firm TA Associates was in advanced discussions to acquire Advent International owned enterprise software company Unit4 NV for over $2 billion, Bloomberg reports.

• Last year, Advent renewed plans to divest Netherlands-based Unit4 after receiving takeover interest from a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
• Bloomberg notes that Unit4 offered cloud-based enterprise resource planning software, financial forecasting, payroll, and student management systems with over 6,000 customers.
• Advent acquired Unit4 for $1.4 billion (€1.2 billion) in 2013. Advent had previously abandoned its plan to sell Unit4 in 2018.
• Unit4’s cloud bookings grew 82% in the fourth quarter of FY20. Cloud subscription revenue grew 12% to $29.6 million. Total bookings rose 20%. Strong global growth, including its North American business following growing demand for the Unit4 Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform and its new ERPx solution drove the results.
• Any deal for Unit4 would add to $116 billion of transactions already announced in the global software industry for 2021, up 60% year on year, as per Bloomberg.