Cowen's resume is full of stints in which sold companies after heading them for a couple of years. Epicor was bought by the Apax funds early in 2010 with the investment firm also purchasing the former Activant Solutions and melding its acquisitions together under the name Epicor Software. It is a substantially different company than the one purchased by Apax. Epicor acquired Solarsoft in September 2012. Last year, it spun off its retail software arm under the name Aptos leaving EVP Craig McCollum in charge of the day-to-day business, which includes its ERP operations while Cowen shopped the company. Apax is still in the financial software business—parent of JobBoss, Macola and Max—last in 2014 for about $930 million.
KKR BUYING EPICOR SOFTWARE Featured
The Apax Partner era is coming to an end for Epicor Software as the funds advised by that firm are selling the software company to KKR. Terms were not disclosed. It had been believed for some time that Apax wanted to off load Epicor. It was assumed for some time that when Joe Cowen became Epicor's CEO in October 2013 replacing Pervez Quereshi that he was brought in to sell the company.
