The industry never saw a quote attributed to Vista Equity
Partners CEO Robert Smith regarding his private equity firm's acquisition of
Cvent. When the U.S. Department of Justice, delayed the acquisition with "second
request" for more in-depth details, and later wanted an additional
extension, Smith rebuffed them. Quiet and tough is standard operating procedure
for this investment giant, personally worth $2.5 billion, according to Forbes. He
studiously stays out of the spotlight but drives home the deals.
Smith's defiant silence toward the DOJ forced regulators
either to sue to block the merger they had already delayed once or to clear it
before the end of November. It was a game of chicken that Smith ultimately won.
The DOJ cleared the merger on Nov. 22, allowing Smith to add meetings
technology provider Cvent to a Vista Equity Partners portfolio that already
included Lanyon, Cvent's largest competitor. On Nov. 29, Vista announced the
merger of Lanyon and Cvent, coming together under the Cvent name.
If Vista's buying spree is any indication, Smith has a
larger strategy in play for his meetings and event technologies. Vista snapped
up marketing automation platform Marketo in June. The move positioned Vista
Equity to deliver end-to-end meetings data automation to the market under its
single umbrella. This is a first for the meetings industry and promises to
streamline the effort to capture and analyze engagement data from live meetings
and events.
Yet Smith's cascading mergers have brought not just
opportunity but also anxiety to the meetings market. Cvent CEO Reggie Aggarwal
has assured clients that all the Lanyon and Cvent products will be supported
for the near future. Meanwhile, competitors and meetings technology observers
have said there's little question whether platform redundancies ultimately will
integrate into a single product. That's an outcome both Lanyon and Cvent
clients will have to navigate eventually.