Baring Private Equity Asia and Everstone Capital have emerged the front runners to acquire a controlling stake in the healthcare outsourcing division of Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) that has been carved out by the eponymous conglomerate as part of a value unlocking exercise.
The two PE funds are expected to submit a binding offer in the next one month, said people familiar with the matter. They expect the transaction, valuing the unit at $500-600 million, to be announced in the current quarter itself.
Late last year, listed HGS started a formal process to hive off its healthcare BPO, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, and mandated Barclays to run a formal process to find a buyer. The process had seen interests from bulge bracket funds including Blackstone, Carlyle, Apax and Advent.
ET reported on February 18 that HGS had begun a process to dilute the stake in its healthcare arm.
The worldwide healthcare BPO market is expected to cross $400 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 11%. Globally, HGS competes with players such as Wipro, IBM, Cognizant, Hewlett Packard, Quintiles IMS Holdings, Accenture, GeBBS Healthcare, DSM Pharma and Xerox Corp.
Everstone and Baring Asia spokespeople declined to comment.
A Hinduja Global Solutions spokesperson said HGS board had taken a decision last September to review the portfolio of businesses to unlock higher value. He declined to comment on any further speculation.
