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Baring Private Equity To Acquire NIIT Technologies For $706 Million

Baring private equity acquires NIIT Technologies. 

A stream of binary coding, text or computer processor instructions, is seen displayed on a laptop computer screen (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)
A stream of binary coding, text or computer processor instructions, is seen displayed on a laptop computer screen (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

Baring Private Equity Asia and its arms will acquire 56 percent stake in NIIT Technologies Ltd. including an open offer for 26 percent shareholding, taking the total deal value to up to Rs 4,890 crore.

NIIT Ltd., the promoter of the information technology company, and other promoter entities will sell their entire shareholding of 30.4 percent in the company for Rs 2,627 crore, the IT company said in a statement to the stock exchanges. The transaction with Baring is at a premium of 3.3 percent to NIIT Technologies’ closing price on the BSE on Friday.

Baring, through its arms Hulst B.V., along with The Baring Asia Private Equity Fund VII L.P., The Baring Asia Private Equity Fund VII L.P, and The Baring Asia Private Equity Fund VII SCSp, will come out with an open offer under Securities Exchange Board of India’s takeover regulation for an additional 26 percent stake at Rs 1,394 apiece amounting to Rs 2,263 crore, NIIT Technologies said in its filing. The transactions are subject to regulatory approvals.

NIIT will sell its entire 23.5 percent holding in NIIT Technologies where its shareholders are likely to get Rs 2,020 crore. This comes to approximately Rs 121 per share, according to BloombergQuint calculations. NIIT closed at Rs 95.45 per share on the BSE on Friday.

NIIT Technologies was one of the biggest gainers in financial year 2018-19 outperforming the Nifty IT Index as well as the Nifty 500 Index in terms of returns.

The involvement of Baring Private Equity Asia will provide further impetus to the management team led by CEO Sudhir Singh to take the company to the next level of growth.
Rajendra Pawar, chairman of NIIT Technologies Ltd.

“Baring’s association will support the existing management team in capturing opportunities in an increasingly digital world,” Vijay Thadani, managing director of NIIT said.

Baring already has a controlling interest in Hexaware Technologies Ltd. Its investment arm HT Global IT Solutions Ltd. holds 62.7 percent in Hexaware.