Accelerant Holdings' second quarter was supposed to be an earnings call. It ended up being a take-private announcement, filed the same day the company posted results. Thoma Bravo's affiliate agreed to acquire Accelerant for $20.25 in cash per share, a 49% premium to the August 12 close of $13.61, with a 6% ticking fee if insurance regulatory approvals slip, and an enterprise value of "more than $4 billion." Altamont Capital Partners, holding roughly 82% of the voting rights, has agreed to vote in favor. Closing is guided to the first half of 2027, and the company has cancelled its earnings call.
The print itself was strong on the lines management can repeat. Total revenue rose 63% year over year to $356.9 million, with Exchange Written Premium up 23% to $1.32 billion. Adjusted EBITDA reached $93.1 million, up 46%, at a 30.6% margin, and adjusted net income climbed 165% to $70.0 million, with adjusted EPS of $0.32 versus $0.13 a year ago. GAAP net income was $80.0 million, with diluted EPS of $0.36. Two line items do most of the work and need to be named, not buried: $53.0 million of net realized and unrealized investment gains tied to a partial sale of an interest in a third-party administrator, and a $10.0 million Mission profit-sharing buy-out that landed in "other expenses." Strip them out and the operating story still grew, but the headlines were amplified by both.
The deal framing is what turns this quarter into a referendum. Accelerant is being sold at roughly 2.1x trailing twelve-month operating revenue, a level that prices in continued execution on the fee-based engine (Exchange Services plus MGA Operations), the structural shift in mix toward Third-Party Direct Written Premium, and a path to compounding Adjusted EBITDA without the public-market spotlight. Whether the deal closes at $20.25 - or above, with a long regulatory delay - is the only question left, and the F5 read is the spread to the cash price. At the $19.51 print on August 13, the spread was about 64 cents, or 3% to the cash, and 69 million shares traded. That is a market saying the deal is mostly priced for close, with a small premium for time.