Thrive Holdings to Buy Boca Raton's ADT in $15.3 Billion All-Cash Deal
One of South Florida's largest public companies is going private: Thrive Holdings will pay $10 a share in cash for ADT, a 45.6% premium, and plans to rebuild it with AI.
BOCA RATON — One of South Florida’s biggest public companies is about to go private. ADT, the Boca Raton-based home security giant, has agreed to be acquired by Thrive Holdings in an all-cash deal that values the company at about $7.6 billion in equity and $15.3 billion including debt, the companies announced Oct. 29.
The Terms
ADT stockholders will receive $10.00 per share in cash when the deal closes. That is a 45.6% premium to ADT’s unaffected closing price of $6.87 on Oct. 27, and a 52.1% premium to its 30-day volume-weighted average share price ending that day, according to the announcement. ADT’s board approved the agreement unanimously.
Financing commitments come solely from funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, and the deal is not subject to a financing condition. It is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending approval from ADT shareholders and U.S. antitrust regulators. Once it closes, ADT’s stock will stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
There is still a window for a competing bid. The merger agreement includes a 30-day “go-shop” period running until 11:59 p.m. New York time on Nov. 28, 2026, during which ADT and its advisors can solicit other offers, with a possible 10-day extension for certain bidders. ADT said it does not plan to disclose developments in that process unless required.
Who Is Thrive Holdings?
Thrive Holdings is an offshoot of Joshua Kushner’s venture firm Thrive Capital. Rather than backing startups, it buys established businesses and uses AI and engineering teams to modernize how they run. It describes itself as a permanent capital holding company, meaning it intends to own businesses over a long horizon rather than flip them.
According to ADT’s announcement, more than 75 businesses across accounting, IT services and the built environment are already part of Thrive Holdings. After closing, ADT will become the foundation of Thrive’s smart home security business. Thrive Holdings is backed by and partnered with OpenAI, and it plans to use OpenAI models and engineers across ADT, Refresh Miami reported, citing TechCrunch.
“With Thrive Holdings’ long-term capital and technology expertise, ADT will gain new opportunities to accelerate innovation, enhance the customer experience and bring greater peace of mind to even more homes and businesses,” ADT Chairman and CEO Jim DeVries said in a statement.
Thrive Capital partner Kareem Zaki said in a statement that the goal is “to help ADT’s teams better serve customers and offer a seamless service with more actionable information for the professionals responding.”
A Familiar Path for ADT
ADT has been private before. Apollo Global Management acquired it in 2016 for $6.9 billion, and two years later it returned to the public markets on the NYSE, according to Refresh Miami. The company provides electronic security, fire protection and 24/7 alarm monitoring for homes and small businesses and employs about 12,000 people.
Apollo’s role this time is as the financing source, not the buyer.
What Customers Should Know
With a buyer built around AI and a partnership with OpenAI, privacy is an obvious question. ADT’s announcement says its data and privacy policies will remain unchanged and that no new data sharing will occur without customer permission. Until the deal closes, ADT will continue to operate independently.
Why It Matters for South Florida
ADT is one of the largest public companies headquartered in the region, so its move to private ownership shrinks South Florida’s roster of NYSE-listed giants. The announcement does not address the headquarters location or staffing levels after the deal closes.
The bigger story may be the model. Thrive Holdings is part of a growing wave of investors betting that the fastest way to put AI to work is to buy mature companies with millions of customers and rebuild their operations, rather than starting from scratch. ADT, with its national service network and monitoring centers, is a large test of that idea.
For South Florida’s small-business owners, many of whom rely on ADT for alarm and fire monitoring, nothing changes yet. The things to watch are the go-shop deadline on Nov. 28, the shareholder vote, and, after closing, whether AI-driven changes show up in pricing, response times and the service experience.
Sources: ADT investor relations, ADT newsroom, Refresh Miami.