Take-Private Premiums: What the 44% vs 45.6% Gap Shows

ADT Inc. agreed on 29 October 2026 to be acquired by Thrive Holdings for $10.00 a share in cash, a 45.6% premium to its unaffected closing price of $6.87 on 27 October 2026. CCC Intelligent Solutions agreed on 15 October 2026 to be acquired by GTCR and Elliott for $7.75 a share in cash, a premium of approximately 44% to its unaffected close on 9 July 2026. The two headline numbers are about 1.6 points apart, but they are measured from base dates 98 days and two days before each announcement, so they are not like-for-like. The useful question is therefore which day each company chose as its base, not which premium is larger.

What premiums did ADT and CCC announce?

Both premiums are the companies' own figures, each calculated against a single closing price, as stated in the two GlobeNewswire releases. The table sets the two deals side by side, so the base dates can be read across a single row. The day counts and the implied CCC price are computed from the stated figures.

The CCC deal terms are covered in our earlier report on CCC Intelligent Solutions to be acquired by GTCR and Elliott at $7.75 a share.

What is an unaffected price?

The unaffected price is the target's share price before acquisition speculation began influencing trading, according to IB Interview Questions. Both releases measure the premium against a date they describe as unaffected. That date sets the base for the whole percentage, so the choice of date matters as much as the offer price.

Why does the unaffected date change the premium?

A premium is the offer price divided by the unaffected price, minus one. Move the base date and the percentage moves, even when the offer does not change.

• ADT: $10.00 / $6.87 - 1 = 45.6%. The base date is two days before the announcement.
• CCC: $7.75 / 1.44 implies a base of about $5.38 on 9 July 2026. The base date is 98 days before the announcement.

Read together, the two bullets show the mechanism. The ADT base sits two days before the announcement, so the window for share price movement is short. The CCC base sits 98 days before, so any movement in that window sits inside the 44%, and the release does not describe it.

CCC's release gives no share price for any date between 9 July and 15 October 2026, so its premium against a later base date cannot be calculated from the release.

Is the premium measured on a closing price or a VWAP?

Both headline premiums are measured against a closing price, but both releases also cite a premium against a 30-day average: ADT's release gives 52.1% to its 30-day volume-weighted average price ending 27 October 2026, and CCC's gives approximately 59% to its 30-day average price as of 9 July 2026. Volume-weighted average price (VWAP) is a different basis. According to QuantInsti, VWAP is the average price of a security over a period, weighted by the volume traded at each price. A VWAP base gives heavily traded days more weight than a single close, so the same offer can produce a different premium on each basis.

Does a longer gap between base date and announcement distort the premium?

A longer gap gives the share price more time to move before the deal is announced, and any move sits inside the premium. If CCC's shares rose between 9 July and 15 October, part of the 44% reflects that rise rather than the price the buyers chose to pay. If the shares fell, the premium understates how far the $7.75 offer sits above the pre-deal price. CCC's release gives no price for those dates, so neither case can be tested from it.

How should you read a take-private premium before you quote it?

Check the base before you repeat the percentage. Work through these four steps:

1. Find the unaffected date and the price basis, whether a single close or an average.
2. Divide the offer price by the base price yourself and confirm the percentage.
3. Count the days between the base date and the announcement.
4. Quote the premium with its date, for example "approximately 44% to the 9 July 2026 close."

For the filing that usually appears when a merger is announced, see What SEC Form 425 Is and Why It Shows Up the Day a Merger Is Announced.

What's still unclear?

• Two deals are a sample of two. They show how a premium can mislead. They do not establish a typical premium for take-private deals.
• CCC's $5.38 base is implied, not reported. The company says "approximately 44%", so the true base could differ slightly from $5.38.
• What moved either stock before its base date is not established here. Neither release shows ADT's shares before 27 October or CCC's before 9 July.
• The two deals cannot be compared on equity value. ADT's release gives approximately $7.6 billion; CCC's release gives no equity value.