Quess Corp to sell its stake in Simpliance Technologies for Rs 120 crore

Staffing and outsourcing service provider Quess Corp Ltd on Thursday announced that it has entered into definitive agreements with Aparajitha Corporate Services to divest its stake in digital risk and compliance service company Simpliance Technologies.  
 

Aparajitha, a Human Resource compliance service firm from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, along with its affiliates would take over a 53 per cent stake in Simpliance from Quess Corp.
 

The deal is valued at an enterprise value of Rs 120 crore, on a cash and debt-free basis, subject to closing adjustments and fulfilment of conditions set out in the transaction document.
 

“For Quess, a strategic investment of Rs. 4.5 crore for its total 53 per cent shareholding made between Oct-16 and Aug-18 has yielded an enterprise value of Rs.120Crs. While we continue to pursue our corporate structure simplification process, we will ensure significant value unlocking from the investments made since our Initial Public Offering (IPO),” Quess Corp said in a press release.
 

Guruprasad Srinivasan, Executive Director, and Group Chief Executive Officer, of Quess Corp, said, “In line with the Corporate structure simplification process and rationalization of business lines, we have divested our stake in Simpliance Technologies Private Limited. Quess helped the Simpliance team to build a comprehensive tech platform that provides total labour compliance solutions for digital India. While this has created great value for the Shareholders of Quess, we are also happy that Simpliance has found a permanent home at Aparajitha Corporate Services.”
 

Simpliance provides technology-based governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) solutions. The GRC tools like risk management, regulatory compliance, and audit software help optimize business performance. It also hosts India’s largest digital platform for automated Statutory Compliance Management which helps businesses comply with Indian Labour laws.
 

Lt Cdr. Anil Prem D'Souza, Founder and CEO, Simpliance said, “Being a part of the Quess family since 2016 has helped us to build scale, leveraging the Quess’ platform and their management expertise. We look forward to partnering with Aparajitha Corporate Services, to seamlessly integrate our SaaS Offerings to create holistic bundled products for our customers across the value chain.”
 

Founded in 2000, Aparajitha Corporate Services Private Limited provides labour, employee industrial, and EHS solutions along with payroll solutions to around 1750 organisations.
 

Nagaraj Krishnan, Managing Director, Aparajitha Corporate Services, said “The combination with Simpliance will enable us to offer comprehensive compliance solutions – best-in-class services combined with digital tools and emerge as the undisputed leader in the Labor, Employee, and Industrial Compliance segment. We welcome Anil and his team and intend to emerge as a technology and data-oriented compliance solution provider with strong regulatory domain expertise in India and other regions.”