Carlyle, CVC & Hillhouse in the fray for GeBBS

Global private equity firms including Carlyle Group, Hillhouse Investment and CVC Capital Partners have been shortlisted to acquire ChrysCapital-owned GeBBS Healthcare Solutions, said people familiar with the development. The deal proposes to value the Los Angeles-based healthcare business process outsourcing firm at $800 million. The firms, shortlisted after the initial round, will submit a binding offer by mid-July, said one of the persons, who did not wish to be identified.

ChrysCapital Advisors, India's largest PE fund, owns about 80% in GeBBS, which it acquired in 2018 for $140 million, at a valuation of $175 million. The founders of GeBBS will also part-sell stakes in this round, said the people.

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Spokespersons at Carlyle and Hillhouse declined to comment, while queries emailed by ET to GeBBS, ChrysCapital and CVC did not elicit a response till press time.

ET first reported on April 15 that ChrysCapital planned to sell its stake in GeBBS and that it had hired US investment bank and capital markets firm Jefferies to run the sale process.

Founded by Vijay Singh in 2005, GeBBS is a leading player in offshore healthcare administrative services, A provider of revenue cycle management solutions, it competes with the likes of Wipro, IBM, Cognizant, Hewlett Packard, IQVIA, Accenture, Sagility, DSM Pharma and Xerox Corp.

GeBBS posted revenue of about $200 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $50 million for 2023-24, according to people aware of the matter.

Hillhouse, which manages more than $100 billion in public and private market investments across the globe, is one of the largest private equity funds operating in Asia and has deployed about $1 billion in India since 2010, with major investments in Swiggy, CarDekho, Cred and Sharechat. It is known to be actively scouting for buyouts.

ET reported in February that Hillhouse had teamed up with former WNS chief operating officer and president Gautam Barai and Apax former partner Gautam Narayan to build an IT-enabled business process management platform, Novarete. With a $300-400 million commitment from the private equity firm, Novarete planned to expand the platform in the healthcare, insurance and select banking and financial services sectors through organic growth and acquisitions, ET had reported.

Earlier, ChrysCapital exited its investments in the IT/ITeS sector with stellar returns from Infosys, HCL Technologies, Mphasis and Hexaware Technologies.

In 2013, ChrysCapital sold its stake in Hexaware to Baring Private Equity Asia (now EQT) for a threefold return. It sold its stake in Hyderabad-based Cyient for fivefold returns in 2017. In 2021, it sold its majority stake in Infogain, a Silicon Valley-based leader in digital transformation and software services, to the UK's Apax Partners.

In 2021, EQT acquired the healthcare services business of Hinduja Global Solutions, the business process management entity of Hinduja Group, for an enterprise value of Rs 9,000 crore (about $1.2 billion) in one of the largest deals in the outsourcing segment. EQT has been looking to offload a minority stake in the business process outsourcing business, renamed as Sagility, through a proposed listing on Indian bourses.