What a week. Acquisitions, user conferences and, now, Altair Engineering files for an IPO. You can read the filing paperwork here:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1701732/000119312517299201/d290748ds1.htm

A very, very quick read of the highlights shows that Altair wants to raise $150 million through the sale of Class A shares which, if my quick skim holds up, gives those shareholders something like 19% control of the company.  Altair sees three uses for the funds: to repay a term loan that has an outstanding balance of $50ish million and to pay off a revolving credit balance of under $20 million. The rest of the funds (after paying all of the lawyers, accountants, advisors etc.) will be used for “general corporate purposes” like real estate, sales and marketing, and, maybe, more acquisitions. But it also gives Altair the opportunity to create liquidity for employee and owner share sales as well as “future access to public markets”.

There’s lots of other stuff in the filing, to be read at our leisure. I’m taking the weekend off but will read the 200+ pages as I can.