Manipal Education Group acquires 70% stake in MeritTrac

Bangalore-based MeritTrac, with an annual turnover of around Rs 20 crore, was valued at Rs 75 crore.
The acquired controlling stake included a 40 per cent held by HAV2 (Mauritius) Ltd., advised by HSBC Private Equity (Asia) Ltd. Financial investor HAV2 had earlier invested around Rs 16.5 crore in MeritTrac. Following the acquisition, HAV2 would get around Rs 30 crore.

The founding team of Madan Padaki, S Murlidhar and Mohan Kannegal would continue to lead MeritTrac and hold remaining 30 per cent. MEG would join the Board of Directors of MeritTrac.

MEGs Pariksha, with an annual turnover of Rs 8 crore, would be merged with MeritTrac. The combined entity would continue to be known as MeritTrac, and it will continue to operate as an independent testing company, addressing the needs of the assessment and testing growing market place, Anand Sudarshan, managing director and CEO of Manipal Education, told reporters.

MEG would invest additional funds for the expansion of the combined entity.

Sudarshan added that MeritTrac would be looking at natural markets in other developing countries, such as Philippines and Thailand, for expansion.

According to MeritTrac website, the company designs and delivers assessments to evaluate abilities, skills and knowledge for both corporates & individuals. It claims to have over a million candidates tested till date for over 150 clients.

MeritTrac offers scientifically designed assessments which are used by corporate customers for pre-recruitment and employee assessments, and by individuals to benchmark their skills for employability in various sectors. Suite of tests in over 200 areas spanning communication skills, general abilities, domains, technologies and personality profiling, have been delivered across 67 locations in India, says MeritTrac.

MeritTrac has a prestigious list of clients including: Accenture, Adobe, Cognizant, Convergys, Dell, GE, Google, HSBC, IBM, ICICI, ITC, Microsoft, TESCO, and Verizon.