San Francisco-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo has acquired a 67.26 percent stake in French Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) vendor InfoVista SA for €55 million (US$72 million) and intends to buy the remaining shares in a tender offer in the coming months.

Thoma Bravo paid €5.05 per share, a 44 percent premium over the closing share price of €3.50 on Dec. 9, after which InfoVista suspended trading of its stock, a move that hinted at an imminent takeover. (See What's Up at InfoVista?)

The private equity firm's deal values InfoVista SA at €73.3 million ($96.1 million). The network and service performance management specialist, which has about 60 service provider customers and numerous large enterprise users, generates a small profit from quarterly revenues of around €10 million ($13.1 million).

Why this matters
InfoVista may be a small company but its software plays an important role in many networks, so its customers and partners, which include Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), will want to see the OSS firm in good hands.

Those customers and partners may be a little nervous at first, though, as this deal marks a departure for Thoma Bravo as it is the firm's first acquisition outside of the U.S.

The private equity firm is not new to the technology sector, however. It already has a number of software firms in its portfolio, recently led an investor group in agreeing a $1.3 billion acquisition of enterprise security player Blue Coat Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BCSI) and has also just announced an agreement to buy video transcoding specialist Telestream. (See Blue Coat to Be Acquired.)

For more
For more on InfoVista see:

• How to Maximize Ethernet Backhaul Migration Benefits
  
• InfoVista Manages the Cloud
  
• InfoVista Boasts E2E Mobile OSS
  
• InfoVista Scores at Telkom
  
• InfoVista Targets Carrier Ethernet

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading