Private equity firm Samara Capital, along with partners Goldman Sachs and Janchor Partners, has acquired HR firms Innovsource and V5 Global Services in deals said to be worth Rs 350 crore.
The three partners have formed an investment platform called First Meridian to buy stakes in HR and staffing companies. Sources told ET a third acquisition in this space is likely soon.
Samara is furthering its strategy of creating a large, scalable platform in business services with a focus on HR, which will leverage technology. Samara confirmed the acquisitions without disclosing the amount invested.
“India has one of the world’s largest working populations. We will look to add both synergistic and non-synergistic firms to this mix,” said managing director Manish Mehta. “Other than these two companies, we are looking at many other acquisitions in the HR space.” Mehta said the idea was to build companies of the future.
“There are a lot of firms in the mid- to late stages in the technology space in human resources and we are looking at them, too,” he said. First Meridian, which will now have a national footprint in the staffing industry, will invest in the HR technology, staffing, recruitment process outsourcing, compliance management and managed-services areas.
Talent specialist Kamal Karanth, a co-founder of Xpheno, said there is a lot of interest in the HR space post demonetisation and rollout of the goods and services tax, which has led to the formalisation of jobs in India. “PEs and VCs have been interested in HR companies for some time now but they are only looking at large ticket sizes and this acquisition fits well into that,” he said.
Staffing firm Innovsource had a reported a turnover of Rs 870.2 crore during the fiscal year 2016, as against Rs 743.3 crore in the previous year. The Mumbai-based company with about 55,000 associates has a presence in more than 30 cities and caters to clients in the retail, ecommerce, manufacturing, BFSI and logistics sectors.
New Delhi-headquartered V5 Global, which was set up in 2005, is a business process consulting and restructuring organisation that provides services in the sales and marketing domain to businesses.
Source: Economic Times