General Atlantic to buy out Computershare from Karvy JV

Karvy Computershare today said that its joint venture partner Computershare and some other existing shareholders have decided to exit the firm by selling their stakes to American PE firm General Atlantic, for an undisclosed sum.

While the Australia-based Computershare owns 50 per cent in Karvy Computershare, the statement did not specify how much other shareholders own and will be selling.

Hyderabad-headquartered Karvy Computershare is the country's largest investor and issuer services provider for the asset management industry and companies and services over 90 million investor accounts for its clients.

Under the agreement present managing director C Parthasarathy will continue to be "a meaningful shareholder" in the company and will elevated as the chairman of the board.
 

Founded in 1995, Karvy Computershare became a JV between the Karvy Group and the Melbourne-based Computershare in 2004. The company is also licensed by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (Pfrda) as the official central record-keeping agency for the National Pension Scheme.

"With the continued growth of the domestic asset management industry, there is significant opportunity for Karvy Computershare to support the expanding needs of our clients through our tech-enabled platform," said Parthasarathy.

Sandeep Naik, managing director and head of General Atlantic India & Asia-Pacific, said "we believe Karvy Computershare will remain a partner of choice for asset managers and corporates, given its extensive expertise and market-leading suite of services. We look forward to to enhance its value proposition with our partnership."

Karvy Computershare chief executive V Ganesh said the partnership with General Atlantic marks an important milestone for the company and we are excited about the next phase of growth of the company.

Stuart Irving, CEO of Computershare said "we are confident that Karvy Computershare is in superb hands for its next chapter."

Karvy Computershare employs over 5,500 spread across its over 200 locations across, while Computershare is a global market leader in transfer agency and share registration, employee equity plans, mortgage servicing, proxy solicitation, and stakeholder communications and employs over 16,000 worldwide.