TAXWELL

[Lee B]

"Headquartered in Franklin, North Carolina, Taxwell (formerly Drake Software) is a leading provider of tax preparation software to both professional tax preparers and individual Digital Do-It-Yourself (DIY) filers. The Company provides the tools and resources that users need to build their businesses and properly file federal, state and local taxes across the country.

Taxwell employs c. 1,000 people across its Franklin, NC headquarters as well as in Dallas, TX, and Cedar Rapids, IA. More than 90,000 tax professionals and 3 million DIY tax filers throughout the US use Taxwell annually, and each year the company processes millions of federal and state-accepted returns."

Taxwell is the parent holding company for Drake and TaxAct set up by the European private equity firm Cinven.

Supposedly, Drake and TaxAct will operate as separate subsidiaries.

[Lee B]

"Drake Software ("Drake" or the "Company"), a provider of comprehensive professional tax preparation software, today announced that Dermot Halpin has joined as Executive Chair. The appointment follows the completion of the acquisition of TaxAct, a leading provider of digital, do-it-yourself ("DIY") tax filing assistance software and services, and the combination of TaxAct with Drake under a single holding company.

Mr. Halpin brings significant leadership experience building and scaling high-growth consumer marketplace platforms. Throughout his career he has led businesses operating worldwide, and previously held senior leadership positions including President of Attractions and Vacation Rentals at TripAdvisor and President of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Expedia. He currently serves as a non-executive Director at Datalex. Datalex is a public software developer headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It works mostly with airlines to develop travel software, such as booking websites."

So the Executive Chair of Taxwell  previously held  executive leadership positions at Trip Advisor, Expedia and an airline travel software developer

[Catherine]

Not a particularly good sign, although also not (to my knowledge) a particularly bad one. If the guy trashed the prior companies, that would be bad. 

Explains why I've been getting marketing emails from TaxAct as well as from Drake over the past xxx months.

[Lee B]

I have never been impressed with TripAdvisor since they got caught multiple times suppressing negative reviews.

I do think it sends a message about the strategic thinking of Cinven since private equity investments firms

usually expect their investment to be returned in 5 to 7 years.

[Medlin Software, Dennis]

Shark Tank has taught all who watch that investors want to (usually)have the business acquired within a 5- 7 year period, so they can get theirs and move on.

What one sees with big likely profitable family run entities (like Drake probably was, Adam Drake, unless the family wants to keep going, without cashing out, when there are no family members willing or able to buy out others, the entity gets sold.  A great example is the recent sale of Tiffin Motorhomes.  Tiffin was actually PERFECTLY timed as they got theirs right before the start of the during/after COVID lull in MH sales.

[Terry D EA]

I just hope this will not be like when CCH took over ATX