Vista Equity Partners, the private equity firm that spent $2.8 billion this year acquiring San Diego’s Active Network, Websense, and Omnitracs, intends to move all three companies to Texas, according to a source in senior management who is familiar with the plans.
The relocation would be completed in 2014, affecting a total of up to 1,700 San Diego-based employees at all three companies.
“The wheels are in motion,” said the source, who would only speak anonymously about Vista Equity’s plans. “They don’t like California because of the tax structure. They like to hire young, aggressive, incredible talent on the cheap, and get them in there to drive up the earnings or cash flow. They basically take out the costs, increase the cash flow, get the debt down, and look for a sale.”
Vista Equity did not respond this week to requests for comment that were left Tuesday by phone and through the firm’s website. Vista Equity is based in San Francisco, and has offices in Chicago and Austin, TX.
In response to a request for comment, Kristin Carroll, marketing vice president for the Active Network, wrote in an e-mail late Wednesday, “As you’re aware, the acquisition by Vista is very recent and we have not finalized any of our 2014 plans.”
Omnitracs CEO John Graham declined to comment in a brief phone call, referring the query to Vista Equity. A spokeswoman for Websense did not immediately respond to a query by phone and e-mail late Wednesday.
The private equity firm specializes in
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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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