SolarWinds Inc. has become the third publicly-traded enterprise technology vendor to move off the stock exchange in so many weeks after agreeing to sell all of its outstanding stock to a duo of powerful investors for a hefty 43.5 percent premium over its last closing price prior to the announcement of the news. Added up, a total of $4.5 billion is set to exchange hands.

That’s enough to put the transaction among the biggest private equity buyouts in recent memory but still positions SolarWinds last in this most recent round of acquisitions behind SanDisk Corp., which accepted a $19 billion bid from its top rival yesterday morning. The official confirmation of the long-rumored merger came days after EMC Corp. agreed to move under the wing of Dell Inc. for an all-time industry high of $67 billion.

While both are much bigger overall, the deals place a much smaller premium on their respective targets than what Thoma Bravo LLC and Silver Lake Partners, which helped Dell with its own privatization effort last year, are paying for SolarWinds. That reflects the differences in position among the three recently bought firms.

Whereas SanDisk and EMC are both selling out due to stagnating demand for their core storage products, flash drives in the case of the former and arrays in the latter’s, SolarWinds has seen nothing of the sort. The company recorded a 17 percent revenue increase in its most recent quarterly financial report on the back of strong demand for its application management automation software that also helped raise net earnings to $0.29 per share from $0.18 a year prior.

As a result, Thoma Bravo and Silver Lake Partners shouldn’t have much trouble realizing a return on their investment if they manage to keep SolarWinds on its current trajectory. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC  and DLA Piper LLP acted as the vendor’s financial advisors, while Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Ropes & Gray LLP handled the buy-side of the deal.

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