Thrive Holdings to Buy ADT in $15.3bn Deal

Thrive Holdings has agreed to buy ADT, the US home security company, in an all-cash deal that gives it an enterprise value, which includes debt, of about $15.3bn. ADT stockholders will receive $10 a share, the companies said in a joint announcement on 29 October. That gives an equity value of about $7.6bn. ADT will become privately held, and its shares will stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange once the deal closes.

The price is a 45.6% premium to ADT’s unaffected closing share price of $6.87 on 27 October, and 52.1% above its 30-day volume-weighted average. ADT’s board approved the deal unanimously.

“Today, we are announcing an agreement to acquire ADT,” Thrive Holdings said on X. “Home security has the qualities we look for in the businesses we own: an essential service built on specialist expertise and earned trust.”

Who is buying ADT

Thrive Holdings describes itself as a permanent capital holding company that invests in established businesses and improves them with technology. It says more than 75 businesses in accounting, IT services and the built environment are already part of the group, including Current in accounting and Shield in IT services. Bloomberg Law and The Verge both reported that Thrive Holdings, formed last year, is an offshoot of Joshua Kushner’s venture firm Thrive Capital. Thrive Capital co-led Ramp’s recent $1.85bn funding round.

After the deal closes, ADT will form the foundation of Thrive Holdings’ smart home security business, the release says. ADT has more than 12,000 employees and a history going back more than 150 years.

“ADT has spent generations showing up for people when it matters most,” said Kareem Zaki, a partner at Thrive Holdings. “We intend to build on that foundation by strengthening ADT’s technology and product capabilities, with the capital and patience to invest over decades.”

Jim DeVries, ADT’s chairman, president and chief executive, said the deal “recognizes the value built by our more than 12,000 employees and delivers an attractive cash premium to our stockholders”.

Terms, financing and timing

Funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management are providing all of the financing commitments, and the deal is not subject to a financing condition. According to Axios, Apollo is ADT’s former owner: it took ADT private in 2016, brought it back to the stock market in 2018 and sold its remaining stake about five months ago.

The companies expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2027. It needs approval from ADT’s stockholders and US antitrust clearance.

The agreement also includes a “go-shop” period. Until 11:59pm New York time on 28 November 2026, ADT and its advisers may seek rival offers, with a possible 10-day extension for parties that make proposals in that window. ADT can walk away for a better offer, subject to the agreement’s terms. It says it will disclose developments only when it decides to, or when it is required to.

ADT will report its third-quarter results on 3 November as planned, but will take no questions on its conference call because of the deal. Citi and Goldman Sachs are advising ADT, and Evercore is advising Thrive Holdings.

Why Thrive wants a 150-year-old alarm company

At first glance, a home alarm business is an odd fit for a group born out of a venture capital firm. Thrive Holdings’ case is that established industries will be “transformed by technology from the inside out”, as it puts it on its own page about the deal. Its model is to own the business outright and send in its engineers to work alongside the existing staff, rather than selling software to the company from outside.

Home security suits that approach in several ways. ADT earns recurring revenue from monthly monitoring subscriptions, has a nationwide network of installers and technicians, and runs monitoring centres whose staff respond to alarms. Thrive says technology could “help reduce false alarms and make notifications more informative”, and spot equipment faults earlier. Those are practical goals, though neither company has given targets or a timetable for them.

The deal also puts Thrive into a smart home market where consumer technology firms are pushing hard, with Amazon, for example, recently adding a smart home hub to its new Echo Dot. For ADT, the pitch is that private ownership with “permanent capital” gives it more flexibility to invest over a long horizon.

Customer data is the obvious concern when a technology-focused owner buys a company with sensors and cameras in millions of homes. The release addresses it directly: “ADT’s data and privacy policies will remain unchanged, and no new data sharing will occur without customer permission.” Anuj Mehndiratta, a partner at Thrive Holdings, said protecting customers’ homes “also means protecting their data”. Customers will judge that promise on what happens after the deal closes. Takeovers of established hardware businesses are common, as Acuity’s planned $675m purchase of Parameter shows, but a $15.3bn take-private by a group that, according to Bloomberg Law, was formed only last year is on another scale.