Alight Solutions to go public by merging with SPAC

Blackstone Group Inc.’s Alight Solutions has agreed to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company backed by investor Bill Foley.

The deal by Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp would value Alight, a benefits administrator business, at about $7.3 billion including debt, the companies said in a statement Monday.

Based in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Alight provides human-resource support services such as payroll, health benefits and employee communications for large companies in 188 countries, according to its website. The company was a division of Aon until Blackstone bought it in 2017 in a transaction valued as much as $4.8 billion. Since then, Alight has acquired several other human resources and technology companies.

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In 2019, Blackstone postponed its plans for Alight to raise as much as $800 million in an initial public offering just before final pricing due to market conditions, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News then.

Foley, 76, is a veteran investor who’s helped build and lead companies including Fidelity National Financial Inc., the largest U.S. title insurance firm. In December, another blank-check firm of his reached a $9 billion deal to take Paysafe Group Ltd., the online payments firm backed by Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners, public.

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The board of Alight will be made up of of eight directors, including three appointed by Foley, three by Blackstone, Alight Chief Executive Stephan Scholl and one independent director.

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