After almost eight months of speculation, Jacksonville-based Dun & Bradstreet Holdings Inc. agreed March 24 to a $7.7 billion buyout by private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group.
But after months of waiting, stockholders are getting less than they could have received if they sold their shares before news of a potential deal surfaced at the beginning of August.
Clearlake agreed to pay $9.15 in cash for each share of Dun & Bradstreet, a slight gain from its $8.73 closing price on the last trading day before the acquisition announcement.
However, the stock had closed at $10.29 on Aug. 1, the day before news of a possible deal was revealed in a story by Reuters.
Even worse for longtime shareholders, the buyout price was 58% below Dun & Bradstreet’s July 2020 initial public offering price of $22.
“While the price is disappointing and below our $14 target, we believe DNB was constrained by a tough market backdrop and pressure on the company’s largest shareholder to find ways to exit some of their public investments,” Needham analyst Kyle Peterson said in a research note.
The largest shareholder is Cannae Holdings Inc., the investment firm spun off from Jacksonville-based Fidelity National Financial Inc., which held 17.6% of the stock, according to Dun & Bradstreet’s most recent proxy filing.
“As a silver lining, the deal does include a 30-day go shop period which could help extract a modestly higher price if market valuations improve in the coming weeks,” Peterson said.
Dun & Bradstreet was acquired in 2019 by an investment group led by Cannae CEO and Fidelity Chairman Bill Foley.
The investment group took the business data firm public again the next year and with its connections to Jacksonville, it moved its headquarters to the city in 2021.
Dun & Bradstreet acquired the 218,700-square-foot Town Center Two building at 5335 Gate Parkway, across Butler Boulevard from St. Johns Town Center, for its headquarters.
The company did not say anything about plans for the headquarters in a news release announcing the buyout and representatives of Dun & Bradstreet and Clearlake did not respond to email inquiries about it.
CEO Anthony Jabbour said in a message to employees that he will continue to lead Dun & Bradstreet with the current management team.
The message, posted in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, said Clearlake has led or co-led more than 400 investments since its founding in 2006.
“As we worked through the process, Clearlake demonstrated clear belief in Dun & Bradstreet, our strategy and our team. Clearlake understands the value of our proprietary data assets and envisions it as both a platform and fuel for future growth in today’s evolving market, especially with the proliferation of AI,” he said.
Dun & Bradstreet’s operations have improved since the Foley-led buyout, growing revenue from $1.41 billion in 2019 to $2.38 billion in 2025 and increasing adjusted earnings from 56 cents a share to 98 cents last year.
However, that did not translate into gains for shareholders after the IPO. Despite talk of a potential buyout that was confirmed by Dun & Bradstreet, the stock fell to a record low of $7.78 March 13.
While Dun & Bradstreet could find a higher price during the go-shop period, “we believe a price would be largely dictated by overall equity market valuations rather than a change in the fundamental story,” Peterson said.
Dun & Bradstreet’s stock closed at $8.99 on March 24 after the buyout announcement, indicating Wall Street is not anticipating a higher price coming in.