Publish Date : 11-Dec-2014
Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has invested $32.8 million to acquire a 54.85% stake in Chennai, India-based Newgen KnowledgeWorks Private Limited, a provider of publishing and technical services for many of the world’s largest and most prestigious publishers, particularly in the USA, the UK and Europe. Equity for the transaction comes from First Carlyle Ventures III, an investment fund advised by The Carlyle Group. Carlyle acquired the stake held by Franklin Templeton Private Equity Strategy, Aureos South Asia Fund and ePlanet Capital in Newgen. Carlyle had earlier invested in Newgen in 2004 and exited its investment in 2011.
Prabhakar Ram, Founder & CEO of Newgen said: “Newgen has emerged as a preferred service provider for its clients due to its high service quality, efficiency and focus on automation. We are extremely happy to partner with Carlyle again, which engaged in numerous value creation activities and acted as a catalyst in the growth of the company during its previous stint with Newgen.” Shankar Narayanan, Managing Director, Carlyle India, said: “Newgen has built an extremely successful business with strong franchise value. We were pleased with Carlyle’s prior investment in Newgen, and we see the same potential for creating value through our latest investment. We will once again leverage Carlyle’s deep industry expertise and global network to support Newgen through our renewed partnership.”
Newgen offers end to end publishing and technical services for books and journals – from content creation till marketing – such as content sourcing, content creation, project management, author liaison, development editing, copyediting, design, artwork and permissions, typesetting/composition, XML creation, ebook delivery, EPUB conversion, bespoke publishing, backlist conversions, mobile app creation and distribution and discoverability solutions for content through their production centers in India, UK and US.
Mr. Narayanan added, “Newgen’s diversification into adjacent businesses is intended to add value and create upside possibilities to its highly consistent and profitable business model.” These include financial publishing through its UK subsidiary Spectra; digital marketing and discoverability through its subsidiary ePagemaker; and bespoke publishing and documentation solutions through its UK subsidiary GPSL. Since 2000, Carlyle had invested approximately $1.1 billion of equity in approximately 30 transactions in India as of September 30, 2014.
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