Ultimate Software sold software about people, and it lived by a slogan to match: People First. Its UltiPro product handled payroll, benefits and human resources records for mid-sized employers. The South Florida company began in 1990 as a partnership and listed on Nasdaq in June 1998 at $10 a share. Two decades later, an investor group paid about $11 billion for it, one of the biggest software buyouts on record.

From Partnership to UltiPro

Scott Scherr organized The Ultimate Software Group as a Florida limited partnership in August 1990. The company incorporated in April 1996 to take over the partnership's business. Scherr served as chairman, president and chief executive, with Alan Goldstein, a medical doctor, as executive vice president and technology chief. The bet was that mid-sized employers wanted one system for payroll and HR instead of a patchwork of vendors and paper files.

Ten Dollars to $11 Billion

Ultimate sold 3.25 million shares at $10 each and listed on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ULTI. It later moved UltiPro to the cloud and sold it by subscription, and the stock climbed for years. In May 2019 an investor group led by Hellman & Friedman bought the company for $331.50 a share in cash, about $11 billion. In 2020 it merged with Kronos to form UKG.

Cover: Derrick Worker on the Empire State Building, Lewis Wickes Hine. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a worker high on a skyscraper (people at work).