Thoma Bravo just wrapped up a two-year trade with a bangoffloading its remaining 43 million shares in Nasdaq (NASDAQ:NDAQ) for roughly $3.4 billion. The private equity firm sold the shares in two block trades on May 7 and May 13, working with JPMorgan to execute the deal. Pricing came in at $78 to $81 per share, with the final batch sold for $80.68. Nasdaq's stock barely flinched, down 0.1% to $80.94 on Thursday, valuing the company at $46.6 billion.

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This marks the end of a lucrative ride that began in 2023, when Thoma Bravo received a 14.9% stake in Nasdaq as part of its $10.5 billion sale of Adenzavalued at just $55.49 a share at the time. Thoma Bravo had already pocketed $2.8 billion from an earlier block sale in 2024. Now with this final move, the firm has exited completely, turning its initial $4.75 billion stake into a $6.2 billion haul.

That's a cool $1.4 billion in profit, without a single quarterly earnings call. While neither Nasdaq nor Thoma Bravo commented, the deal speaks for itself: this was textbook private equitybuy software, flip to an exchange operator, sell the shares, and walk away smiling.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.

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