TriNet has a market cap of $6.2B. Zenefits was worth $4.5B in 2017. Is the acquisition price over $1B? Or less? Safe to say this is a fire sale? Did zenefits employees (current and ex) make anything out of this or just the VCs took the money and left nothing for employees given liquidation preferences? #tech #zenefits #trinet #startup #acquisition #M&A https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trinet-announces-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-zenefits-301450539.html
yes. fire sale
Employees got nothing then?
even if it sold for full valuation employees would get nothing
“Sources say Zenefits’ venture-capital investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund, have already marked their investments in the firm to zero.”
Zenefits sold to a PE firm recently. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2021/03/18/zenefits-once-worth-45-billion-does-deal-with-private-equity-firm-that-gives-it-control/
So basically leadership sold Zenefits to PE first so that they don’t have to payout employees and then sold to Trinet. Francisco partners is just a proxy PE company, which was not interested in the company growth from day one - they just wanted to get cut of transaction.
sure, but it’s unfair to blame this on the “leadership”. their hands are often tied in cases like this. the investors will only stamp transactions that benefit them first and foremost. if paying out the employees meant a dime less to investors, well good luck
This mentality of investors and employees has to fixed. If you start treating every employee as a partner in the firm then every company will produce best of outcomes. Start treating business as people than numbers.
Stock is basically worth zero to all current / past employees now. Has to be one of the biggest unicorn busts in history
Hi. We were told yada yada that Parker structured the stock such that employees were never going to get much, after what was left after what the VCs got. I don’t know how much truth there is to that. Definitely after FP ‘bought’ us, it was devalued to basically nothing. Some employees got new stock though.
Jay never mentioned that before the acquisition and the sale. A lesson I learned the hard way: never trust any leadership if they keep dodging questions related to the financial health of the company and/or the current share price. And never stay at a company like that.
I think it’s also fair to say that Parker’s missteps led us to where we needed FP to stay open. I respect his hutzpah and all, but he was all about the value-pump. He pulled out $10M for himself even while the company was on an unsustainable spending frenzy.
I got an email from Zenefits that they will reach out in next 10 business days for shares redemption..I don’t know what does that mean
Basically nothing
It means the shares have to be liquidated, so here’s finally the $0.02 they’re worth.
Jay made money, a couple of his top lieutenants made money, everyone else is SOL. Shares aren’t even worth $0.02 - try half that.
That’s interesting. We just signed with Trinet