Thrive Holdings, the OpenAI-backed company that buys established businesses and builds AI into them, has agreed to acquire ADT, the American provider of home and small-business security. The all-cash deal was announced on 29 October 2026 and ADT's board approved it unanimously. When it closes, ADT will leave the New York Stock Exchange and become a private company.
“We intend to build on that foundation by strengthening ADT’s technology and product capabilities, with the capital and patience to invest over decades.”
Kareem Zaki, Partner at Thrive Holdings · sec.gov ↗
Thrive is paying $10.00 a share, which values ADT's equity at about $7.6 billion and the whole business, debt included, at about $15.3 billion. That is a 45.6% premium to ADT's closing price of $6.87 on 27 October, the last trading day before the deal, and 52.1% above its 30-day volume-weighted average to that date. All of the money comes from funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, and the agreement carries no financing condition. In plain terms, shareholders are offered roughly half as much again as the shares fetched just before, and the offer does not hinge on the buyer arranging a loan. What can still stop it is a no vote from ADT's shareholders, an antitrust objection, or a better offer from another bidder during the go-shop. Since ADT's board has already approved the agreement, the first two hurdles belong to shareholders and regulators rather than to the company's directors.
The timetable has several gates, and they decide whether this is done before spring. ADT's shareholders must vote and US antitrust regulators must clear the deal, with completion expected in the first quarter of 2027. Until 11:59pm New York time on 28 November 2026, ADT can also shop itself to other bidders under a 30-day go-shop clause, extendable by ten days for certain parties. Citi, Goldman Sachs, the law firm Cravath and the communications firm Edelman Smithfield advise ADT, while Evercore and Kirkland & Ellis act for Thrive.
ADT has more than 12,000 employees and a history stretching back over 150 years. Its chief executive, Jim DeVries, framed the sale as recognition of what his staff have built and a chance to innovate and improve service. Thrive says it will back the existing management team, and that its engineers will work alongside ADT's people on technology for the company's products and customer support. It also says ADT's data and privacy policies stay as they are, and that no new data sharing will happen without a customer's permission.
About Thrive Holdings
Thrive Holdings is a New York company that owns and operates businesses in critical industries, buying established firms and adding its own technical and operational capabilities to build domain-specific AI models. Thrive Capital launched it in April 2025, and Thrive Capital's founder, Joshua Kushner, is also its chief executive. It began in accounting and IT services.
In December 2025 OpenAI announced an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, of undisclosed value, and said it would embed engineering, research and product teams inside the companies Thrive owns. That arrangement is the link between the AI lab and the businesses Thrive buys, and it is the model Thrive now plans to bring to a security provider with more than 12,000 staff.
Thrive Holdings says it runs more than 75 businesses, among them Current, an accounting firm, and Shield, an IT-services provider, so ADT would be by far the biggest company in a group that has so far been built from smaller services firms. Its partner Kareem Zaki says the intention is to build on ADT's foundation with capital that can wait decades. The deal also puts a number on a private bet from 2022, when State Farm put $1.2 billion into ADT at a valuation of roughly $8 billion for the equity. ADT reported its third-quarter results on 3 November, before the market opened, and held a call that took no questions, so the company has said little beyond the announcement about how the technology work will be organised. What it has committed to in public is limited to better products, better customer support and a promise that privacy practices stay put. The next fixed date is 28 November, when the go-shop window closes; after that come the shareholder vote and the antitrust review that lead towards a first-quarter 2027 close.