Ares Capital to Lead First $1 Billion Unitranche Credit Facility

Ares Capital Corporation

revealed Thursday that it was serving as the administrative agent, joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner for a $1.075 billion unitranche credit facility. The company said that it was in support of the acquisition of Qlik Technologies, Inc.

by Thoma Bravo. The company expects the transaction to close late in the third quarter, subject to customary closing conditions. Ares Capital said that it was committed to holding a big portion of the financing, which the biggest unitranche were financing by a business development company to date. Aside from that, the company would be leading the syndication process to attract additional lenders to the credit facility. The company said that other lead joint arrangers included Golub Capital LLC, TPG Specialty Lending, Inc. and Varagon Capital Partners, LP. The company's CEO, Kipp deVeer, commented, "Leading our industry's first billion-dollar unitranche financing marks another milestone in the strong and consistent growth of Ares Capital. Thoma Bravo turned to us for certainty of closing as well as our scale and experience in closing large transactions at a time when banks continue to retrench from lending to corporate clients due to changes in regulation. We believe this transaction is representative of the growing acceptance of direct lending as a mature asset class, and we believe our market leading position puts us in the forefront of this paradigm shift." Similarly, Thoma Bravo Director of Capital Markets, Erwin Mock, said that "This unitranche financing was unprecedented in size and required a quick commitment from Ares and the syndicate. Due to Ares Capital's size and experience, we were confident that we could rely on them to arrange the financing of our acquisition of Qlik in a timely manner." Shares of the company traded 0.33 percent down on Thursday.