Everstone to buy 35% in S Chand publishers

MUMBAI: Everstone Capital is set to buy about $30 million stake in the seven-decade-old S Chand Group, a leading publisher of textbooks and digital learning, as private equity firms chase deals to transform old family-run companies.
Everstone, managing assets worth $1.8 billion, may take around 35% stake in the New Delhi-based publishing business, said people familiar with the matter.The fund will help the third generation family promoters to grow their content through acquisitions and more aggressive bet on digitization, they added. S Chand publishes over 12 million books — from primary school to higher education books — annually, and has seen the number rise about 15% annually.
S Chand Group and Everstone Capital could not be reached for immediate comments.
India’s textbooks market is fragmented with regional players striking contracts with the state education boards. UK publishing giant Pearson has pushed for larger presence in academic content in an industry where another global name Macmillan has had a long presence. Fast growing integrated education services companies like Educomp have led the expansion of digital classrooms, prompting content players like S Chand and Navneet Publications to go for digitization. S Chand has a joint venture with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt of US in its digitization drive.
Everstone, co-founded by Goldman Sachs bankers Sameer Sain and Atul Kapur, will back S Chand’s plans to grow inorganically, sources said.
Last year, S Chand had acquired BPI which has the rights to characters from Warner Bros and Cartoon Network to diversify its content library.