SOLON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MRI Software, a global leader in real estate software solutions, announces that funds managed by Harvest Partners, LP, a leading private equity firm, are making a substantial strategic investment in the company. Harvest Partners joins existing investors TA Associates and GI Partners as institutional shareholders in MRI. At the same time, TA Associates is also making a significant new investment in the business. These investments will enable MRI to bolster innovation across its end-to-end offering, accelerate growth, extend its global footprint and deliver on its mission to create an open technology environment for the real estate industry.
Patrick Ghilani, MRI’s Chief Executive Officer, comments: “Harvest is an experienced investor with a long-term perspective that will help MRI continue to meet the growing and evolving needs of our clients, innovate our software portfolio and provide world-class global service. We believe the added capital will further the development of our comprehensive software portfolio and allow for strategic add-on acquisitions to meet the needs of a rapidly changing market. Our management team is invigorated to continue our mission in this new decade with the support of these three experienced investors.”
Today, MRI has more than 8,500 enterprise clients, representing over two million users, who rely on the company’s applications to run their daily real estate operations. MRI has experienced unprecedented growth over the last three years, both organically and through strategic acquisitions, resulting in a more than tripling of the size of the business. Over the same timeframe, the number of MRI employees has more than doubled to 1,450.
MRI has significantly expanded its global footprint with major strategic acquisitions in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia. The company has also made key acquisitions that strengthen its product offering and capacity for future innovation, including Leverton, a pioneer in artificial intelligence for the real estate sector, and ProLease, which enhanced capabilities aimed at helping corporate occupiers manage lease administration and analysis while meeting new global accounting standards. MRI now serves clients in more than 170 countries from 30 locations around the world, including Cleveland, Atlanta, Boston, Toronto, London, Cape Town, Singapore, and Sydney.
Hythem T. El-Nazer, Managing Director of TA Associates, says: “Since making our investment in MRI in June 2017, the business has accelerated its growth via continued innovation in new applications and through strategic acquisitions that have extended its global footprint. We are excited about making a further investment in MRI alongside Harvest and are thrilled to continue to back Patrick Ghilani and his leadership team.”
Travis Pearson, Managing Director of GI Partners, adds: “Since GI Partners first invested in MRI in June 2015, the company has demonstrated the ability to capitalize on new investment and deliver innovation, accelerated organic growth and a compelling global competitive position. We appreciate the outstanding leadership that Patrick and the rest of the MRI executive team have delivered and look forward to the company’s next stage of growth.”
Andrew Schoenthal, Partner at Harvest Partners, notes: “We could not be more excited to support MRI on the next phase of their journey. We have watched MRI’s success over the years and are pleased to have the opportunity to be a part of it. We look forward to partnering with management, TA Associates and GI Partners to continue to build the leading provider of real estate software solutions globally.”
TA Associates, GI Partners and Harvest Partners will have equal representation on the MRI Board of Directors. UBS is acting as the exclusive financial advisor and Kirkland & Ellis and Goodwin Procter are acting as legal advisors to MRI Software, GI Partners and TA Associates during the transaction. White & Case is acting as legal advisor to Harvest Partners.
About MRI Software
MRI Software is a leading provider of innovative real estate software applications and hosted solutions. MRI’s comprehensive and flexible technology platform coupled with an open and connected ecosystem meets the unique needs of real estate businesses – from property-level management and accounting to investment modelling and analytics for the global commercial and residential markets. A pioneer of the real estate software industry, MRI develops lasting client relationships based on nearly five decades of expertise and insight. Through leading solutions and a rich partner ecosystem, MRI gives organizations the freedom to transform the way communities live, work and play while elevating their business and gaining a competitive edge. For more information, please visit mrisoftware.com.
About Harvest Partners
Founded in 1981, Harvest Partners is a leading New York-based private equity investment firm that focuses on investments in middle-market companies in the business services & consumer, healthcare, industrial services and manufacturing & distribution sectors. This strategy leverages Harvest Partners’ 35+ years of experience in financing organic and acquisition-oriented growth companies. For more information, please visit harvestpartners.com.
About GI Partners
Founded in 2001, GI Partners is a private investment firm based in San Francisco, California. The firm has raised $20 billion in capital from leading institutional investors around the world to invest in private equity, real estate, and data infrastructure strategies. The private equity team invests primarily in companies in the Healthcare, IT Infrastructure, Services, and Software sectors. The real estate team invests across a broad range of platforms and strategies. The data infrastructure team invests primarily in hard asset infrastructure businesses underpinning the digital economy. For more information on GI Partners and its entire portfolio, please visit http://www.gipartners.com/.
About TA Associates
TA Associates is a leading global growth private equity firm. Focused on targeted sectors within five industries – technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer and business services – TA invests in profitable, growing companies with opportunities for sustained growth, and has invested in more than 500 companies around the world. Investing as either a majority or minority investor, TA employs a long-term approach, utilizing its strategic resources to help management teams build lasting value in high quality growth companies. TA has raised $33.5 billion in capital since its founding in 1968 and is committing to new investments at the pace of over $2 billion per year. The firm’s more than 85 investment professionals are based in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. More information about TA Associates can be found at www.ta.com.
