Home security company ADT has agreed to be bought by Thrive Holdings, a holding company formed by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital that buys established businesses and aims to improve them with technology. The announcement on Oct. 29 puts the all-cash deal at about $7.6 billion in equity value and $15.3 billion in enterprise value, which counts ADT's debt.
The buyer is one that the New York Times has described as an A.I.-focused buyer of service firms, and one that OpenAI partly owns. Until now its companies have been in accounting, IT services and the built environment. ADT sells security and smart home services to homes and small businesses across the U.S.
The deal terms
ADT stockholders will get $10.00 per share in cash. According to the companies, that is a 45.6% premium to ADT's unaffected closing price of $6.87 on Oct. 27, 2026, and a 52.1% premium to its 30-day volume-weighted average price. ADT's board approved the agreement unanimously.
Other terms from the release:
- Financing commitments come solely from funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management. The deal has no financing condition.
- Closing is expected in the first quarter of 2027, subject to approval by ADT stockholders and U.S. antitrust clearance.
- ADT can solicit rival offers in a 30-day "go-shop" period that runs until 11:59 p.m. New York time on Nov. 28, 2026, with a possible 10-day extension for some bidders.
- After closing, ADT stock will stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Investing.com reported that ADT shares rose about 34% on Thursday to their highest level since December 2022.
The Apollo link has history. Axios notes that Apollo is ADT's former owner and sold its remaining stake five months ago. Axios also says this is ADT's second take-private in a decade: Apollo took it private in 2016 and brought it back to the NYSE in 2018. ADT's second-quarter report says that after a secondary offering in the quarter, "Apollo no longer owns shares of ADT's common stock."
Where AI comes in
The deal release does not use the words "artificial intelligence." It talks about technology and engineering. "Thrive Holdings' engineering teams will work alongside ADT's professionals to identify opportunities for technology to enhance the Company's products and services and help its teams support customers more effectively," the companies said.
The AI context comes from who the buyer is. In December 2025, OpenAI took an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings. OpenAI said it "will embed research, product, and engineering teams inside Thrive Holdings' companies to boost speed, accuracy, and cost efficiency while strengthening service quality." The initial focus was accounting and IT services. OpenAI said the work "will establish a repeatable model that can expand across other industries."
Selling to businesses is one of several ways OpenAI makes money, next to ChatGPT subscriptions, the API and ads.
In that announcement, Kushner said: "Historically, technology transformed industries from the outside in. We believe this paradigm shift will happen from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields." Thrive Holdings' own post on the partnership says it hopes to train "the most advanced models for specific tasks within our businesses, guided by both company-specific data and expert feedback."
Neither company has said that OpenAI teams will work inside ADT. That is a question to watch as the deal moves to closing.
In August, Thrive Holdings said it had raised more than $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation, with new investors including SoftBank Group. According to the deal release, more than 75 businesses are now part of Thrive Holdings, including Current in accounting and Shield in IT services. ADT "will form the foundation of Thrive Holdings' smart home security business."
ADT has its own AI work. Its second-quarter report says the company "continued to scale AI-powered customer service capabilities, including AI-driven call routing and virtual AI agents." It also reported progress on Wi-Fi-based sensing, including initial manufacturing of a smart plug device.
What the two sides said
"ADT is pleased to enter into this transaction, which recognizes the value built by our more than 12,000 employees and delivers an attractive cash premium to our stockholders," said Jim DeVries, ADT's chairman, president and CEO. "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," DeVries added.
Kareem Zaki, a partner at Thrive Holdings, said: "We intend to build on that foundation by strengthening ADT's technology and product capabilities, with the capital and patience to invest over decades. Our ambition is to help ADT's teams better serve customers and offer a seamless service with more actionable information for the professionals responding."
Customer data
A security company holds sensitive data about its customers' homes. The release addresses this directly. "ADT's data and privacy policies will remain unchanged, and no new data sharing will occur without customer permission," the companies said. Anuj Mehndiratta, a partner at Thrive Holdings, said: "Protecting customers' homes also means protecting their data. Thrive Holdings is committed to upholding the highest standards of privacy and cybersecurity to protect the information that customers entrust to ADT."
Why it matters
The deal puts a large consumer security business in the hands of an owner whose stated plan is to improve traditional businesses with engineering, and which OpenAI partly owns. One analyst note had already linked ADT's outlook to AI before the deal. Security Info Watch, citing TheFly's account of an RBC Capital Markets note, reported that RBC pointed to ADT's migration to Google Cloud and its integration of AI, but also said competition from do-it-yourself security providers and concerns about AI's potential to disrupt ADT's business weighed on the stock.
Anthropic backs a similar venture. Ode with Anthropic, formed with Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, bought the AI consultancy Casper Studios in August.
What happens next
ADT will report third-quarter results on Nov. 3, 2026, before the market opens. Because of the deal, the company says it will not take questions on its 10 a.m. ET call. The go-shop period ends Nov. 28, and the deal still needs stockholder and antitrust approval. Until it closes, ADT will keep operating independently.
Sources
- ADT newsroom: ADT to be Acquired by Thrive Holdings in $15.3 Billion Transaction
- Axios: Thrive Holdings taking ADT private in $15.3B deal
- Investing.com: ADT stock spikes 34% on $7.6 billion takeover deal
- OpenAI: OpenAI takes an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings
- Thrive Holdings: Thrive Holdings x OpenAI
- New York Times: Thrive Holdings, A.I.-Focused Buyer of Service Firms, Raises $2 Billion
- Thrive Holdings: New capital to bring frontier AI to critical industries (Aug. 12, 2026)
- ADT: second quarter 2026 financial results
- Security Info Watch: ADT Could Go Private as Thrive Capital Explores Deal
