Behind the Buyouts: Great Hill Re-Ups on Wayfair Amid Uncertainty

Great Hill Partners co-founder and managing partner Christopher S. Gaffney says the public markets got the valuation of online home products retailer Wayfair all wrong during Covid-19 stock market swoon earlier this year. So, the PE firm teamed up in April with two other private investors to buy $535 million in senior notes in Wayfair, convertible at $72.50 a share, at a time when the stock was trading at about $50. Now, three months later, Wayfair is trading at more than $200 a share.