September 14, 2015 — Late last night, private equity firm Vista Equity Partners agreed to acquire Solera Holdings in a $6.5 billion deal including $3.74 billion cash along with Solera’s leveraged debt.

The move is automotive retail’s largest acquisition for now. Rumors continue to persist on Wall Street that CDK Global will be acquired in the next several weeks. The company is rumored to be talking with various private equity firms  –including one of its hedge fund owners, in a deal that could command as much as $10 billion.

Meanwhile, we expect Cox Automotive’s $4 billion deal of Dealertrack to close sometime next week.

Vista’s acquisition, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016, will make the private equity firm one of the larger players in the automotive retail space. It currently owns Dealersocket, one of the industry’s top CRM solutions.

Solera will bring significant data that its accumulated from its risk and asset management solutions for automotive insurance firms. The company also owns service marketing firm DME Automotive and Autopoint, (formerly known as MPi).