Cognizant to buy IT services provider TriZetto for $2.7 billion

REUTERS - Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp said it would buy healthcare IT services provider TriZetto Corp for $2.7 billion from private equity firm Apax Partners, its largest deal ever.

The company's shares rose nearly 3 percent in premarket trading.

TriZetto is the latest U.S. healthcare IT services provider to be acquired as payors and providers of healthcare seek new solutions to cut costs.

"Healthcare is undergoing structural shifts due to reform, cost pressure and shifting responsibilities between payers and providers," Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza said in a statement.

"This creates a significant growth opportunity, which TriZetto will help us capture."

Healthcare business segment represented about 26 percent of Cognizant's total revenue in 2013.

Cognizant said it expected revenue synergies of $1.5 billion over the next five years from the deal. The company said the deal would immediately add to adjusted profit.

Private equity firm Apax Partners LLP was exploring a sale of TriZetto, sources told Reuters in August.

TriZetto had 12-month earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of more than $190 million as of June 30, one of the sources had then said.

Cognizant said on Monday it would fund the deal through a combination of cash and debt and had secured $1 billion in financing.

In March, private equity firms Silver Lake Partners LP and BC Partners Ltd sold health insurance claims processor MultiPlan Inc for $4.4 billion to a consortium led by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg's buyout firm Starr Investment Holdings LLC.

Credit Suisse, UBS Securities LLC and Centerview Partners advised Cognizant, while J.P.Morgan Securities LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co advised TriZetto.

Cognizant's shares closed at $44.76 on the Nasdaq on Friday.

(Reporting by Soham Chatterjee in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Sriraj Kalluvila)