HYDERABAD: Piramal Enterprises Ltd (PEL) on Friday announced that it has decided to sell its healthcare insights and analytics business Decision Resources Group (DRG) to US-based Clarivate Analytics for USD 950 million, or over Rs 6,745 crore.
The deal includes USD 900 million and USD 50 million to be received at the end of 12 months. The divestment is part of the Piramal group’s deleveraging exercise and follows the company raising Rs 1,750 crore from Canada’s CDPQ via preferential allotment last month.
The transaction is subject to shareholder approvals and is expected to be completed by the end of next month, PEL and Clarivate said in a joint statement. PEL DRG Dutch HoldCo BV is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises, whereas Clarivate Analytics provides insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation.
According to PEL, the revenue from its healthcare insights and analytics business stood at about Rs 1,330.74 crore for the financial year ended March 2019. "This is a milestone acquisition, which doubles the size of our life sciences business, is accretive to our 2020 earnings and sets us up as an essential, end-to-end, industry-leading data and analytics provider in the highly attractive life sciences ecosystem," said Jerre Stead, executive chairman and CEO, Clarivate Analytics.
It may be noted that in 2012, the Ajay Piramal-led group had invested USD 650 million to acquire DRG, including USD 260 million that comprised equity.