Intuit Sheds QuickBase as Part of Plan to Pare Down

By Lisa Beilfuss 

TurboTax maker Intuit Inc. agreed to sell its QuickBase business to private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe for an undisclosed amount, wrapping up a trifecta of divestitures intended to shed non-core assets.

A QuickBase spokesman said the company will remain in Cambridge and will continue to be led by Allison Mnookin. Intuit will become one of QuickBase's largest paying customers, according to the spokesman.

The deal concludes a string of planned segment sales that Intuit announced about six months ago. Intuit, based in Mountain View, Calif., had said it intended to pare down and focus on its core small-business and tax-preparation software businesses. Last week, the company said sold its personal-finance business Quicken to private-equity firm HIG Capital, a month after it sold its communications software unit Demandforce to Internet Brands.

The company hasn't disclosed deal values for the individual segments, but a spokeswoman said Friday that sale of the three units would together result in proceeds of about $500 million.

In its most recent fiscal year, ended in July, QuickBase brought in $11 million in profit, up from $7 million a year earlier. The segment represented 3% of Intuit's bottom line. The three businesses the company has recently shed together brought in $236 million in revenue in fiscal 2015, or 5.6% of total sales, but they resulted in a loss of $118 million.

Shares in the company, up 3.6% this year, added 0.6% in afternoon trading Tuesday

Write to Lisa Beilfuss at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 08, 2016 14:36 ET (19:36 GMT)

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