Carlyle buys Newgen KnowledgeWorks for $33 mn

Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has acquired control stake in Chennai-based Newgen KnowledgeWorks Private Limited, a provider of publishing and technical services for publishers in the USA, the UK and Europe.

First Carlyle Ventures III, an investment fund advised by The Carlyle Group, has invested $32.8 million to acquire a 54.85% stake in Newgen.

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, “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.”

Newgen provides 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, and distribution and discoverability solutions for content through their production centers in India, UK and US.

Since 2000, Carlyle had invested approximately $1.1 billion of equity in approximately 30 transactions in India as of September 30, 2014.