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The sale of Tribute Technology, the secretive funeral-home technology provider backed by
Providence Equity
Partners, has launched with first round bids due this week, five bankers and private-equity executives with knowledge of the sales process told Barron’s.
Tribute is expected to sell for more than $1 billion, one of those people said. William Blair, an investment bank, is advising on the auction. Tribute produces about $55 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, according to those people.
Executives for Providence declined to comment. Tribute Technology’s website does not list any way to contact the company. Matt Frazer, Tribute’s CEO, did not return calls or messages requesting comment.
The deal is expected to attract private-equity firms as well as large fintech companies like
Global Payments
(ticker: GPN),
Fiserv
(FISV) and
Fidelity National Information Services
(FIS), bankers said.
Executives for Global Payments and Fiserv declined to comment. FIS did not return messages seeking comment.
The average payments company typically sells for an Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, multiple of high teens or more, one of the bankers said. At $1 billion, Tribute is looking to sell for 18 times Ebitda.
Some have questioned the high valuation due to Tribute’s esoteric and narrow focus. “Not sure [Tribute] warrants the same multiple as a well-diversified integrated payments company,” the banker said.
Tribute provides technology that allows funeral homes, cemeteries and crematories to offer services such as payments, insurance assignments, online publishing and e-commerce. Little is known about the company, which only appeared on the Providence Equity website sometime recently. (Tribute was not listed on the Providence website in April, according to internet archive Wayback Machine.) The funeral services company does not list a phone number or an address on its website but it does say it is based in Middleton, Wis.
Founded in 1989, Providence Equity is a buyout shop that invests in sectors such as information services, education and media.
Tribute—whose slogan on its website is “Changing the world one obituary at a time”—is apparently the platform that houses Providence Equity’s investments in the funeral home space. The private-equity firm has been buying up companies, which could number as many as eight, in the sector for the last few years.
Earlier this year, Tribute bought AdPerfect, which offers an obituary platform used by media companies. In an undated statement announcing that deal, Tribute said it provides software to 70% of the funeral home market in the U.S. and Canada. (Tribute acquired AdPerfect in August, PitchBook said.) Frazer, who founded Frazer Consultants in 2003, is AdPerfect’s president and Tribute’s CEO. Calls and messages to Jim McIntosh, AdPerfect’s executive chairman, were not returned.
Write to Luisa Beltran at luisa.beltran@dowjones.com
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