Mumbai: A clutch of private equity funds, including
Apax Partners and Kedaara Capital, are in early stages of discussions to acquire US-headquartered IT and services (ITES) company CSS Corp. Switzerland-based private equity fund Partners Group, which owns CSS Corp, has hired global investment bank William Baird to find a suitable buyer. The deal is expected to value
CSS Corp at $300 million, two people aware of the development said.
Partners Group owns 92% stake in CSS Corp. The $140-million CSS has close to 5,000 employees in India working from three offices in Chennai and two offices in Bengaluru.
The company has a total global workforce of 6,400 professionals across 18 locations. CSS Corp provides services for 140 clients globally in areas of cloud, infrastructure & security; tech support; digital, analytics & automation services; software testing; engineering services; telecom & network services and geospatial services. Mails sent to spokespersons of Apax and CSS Corp did not elicit any response. Spokespersons of Partners Group and Kedaara declined to comment.
In 2013, Partners had acquired about 92% stake in CSS for $270 million in a
leveraged buyout deal, which had given an exit to existing investors SAIF Partners,
Goldman Sachs and
Sierra Ventures. Rest of the stake in CSS is held by employees.