FORMERLY PE OWNED
Vacasa
vacation rental management · Portland, OR
- PE Firm
- Silver Lake →
- Acquirer
- Silver Lake / Riverwood Capital (via TPG Pace SPAC)
- Year Acquired
- 2021
PE backers took the largest vacation rental manager public at $4.5 billion. Four years later it sold for $130 million, a 97% collapse.
What Happened
- Silver Lake, Riverwood Capital, and Level Equity backed Vacasa's growth, then took it public via a SPAC merger with TPG Pace Solutions in 2021 at a $4.5 billion valuation
- Burned through capital at a staggering pace — total losses of $851 million between 2020 and Q1 2024, including $299 million in 2023 alone
- Laid off over 2,100 workers across three rounds of cuts in 2023–2024 as the company hemorrhaged money and homeowners pulled their properties
- Sold to Casago in a deal that closed in April 2025 at $5.30 a share — about $130 million, a 97% decline from its SPAC valuation and one of the most dramatic value destructions of the PE-SPAC era
The Damage Done
- Homeowners earned less as the revenue Vacasa returned fell short of what they expected
- Vacasa's home count fell about 9% in a year, from roughly 44,000 properties to 40,000, as owners left over weak payouts and poor communication
- 2,100+ workers lost their jobs as Vacasa scrambled to cut a business that PE capital had inflated far beyond what the market could sustain
Sources
- Casago to Acquire Vacasa for $128 Million and Take It Private — Skift(2024-12-30)
- Vacation-Rental SPAC Vacasa Restructures, Shares -97% — Wolf Street(2024-05-10)
- Vacasa Is Now a Casago Company After Acquisition Closes — Skift(2025-05-01)
- Vacasa Lost 9% of Its Vacation Rentals in the Last Year, Doesn't See Profitability in 2024 — Skift(2024-08-09)
- Vacasa Continues to Lose Vacation Rental Owners — Skift(2023-11-09)
- Vacasa to Be Publicly Listed Through Combination with TPG Pace Solutions — Business Wire(2021-07-29)