On August 22, 2019, CCI approved the acquisition of approximately 74.5% of the shareholding of CitiusTech Healthcare Private Limited (‘Citius’) by Barolo Holdings B.V. (‘Barolo’) on a fully diluted basis, pursuant to purchase of shares from General Atlantic Singapore Fund Pte. Limited and certain other investors.[1]

Barolo is a company incorporated in the Netherlands and belongs to Baring Private Equity Asia (‘Baring’). While Barolo has no direct physical presence in India, Baring is present in India through its investments in NIIT Technologies Limited (‘NIIT’), Hexaware Technologies Limited (‘Hexaware’), Xavient Digital (‘Xavient’), and AGS Health Private Limited (‘AGS Health’). NIIT and Hexaware are both active in India, and provide business process outsourcing and IT outsourcing services. While Xavient and AGS Health are physically present in India, they do not generate any revenue from within India. Citius is an Indian incorporated company engaged in the business of technology services solutions with a focus on the healthcare sector. It is not active in India in the market for consulting services, and only provides implementation services.

The CCI noted that there was some horizontal overlap between the activities of Citius, and those of Baring’s entities in India. However, the combined market share of the entities was found to be between 0-5%, owing to the presence of other large players in the market, which would impose competitive restraints on the parties. Further, the CCI also noted that none of the entities party to the transaction had any activities which belonged to different levels of the same production chain. In light of the above factors, the CCI was of the opinion that the combination was not likely to have any Appreciable Adverse Effect on Competition (‘AAEC’) and accordingly, approved the combination.

[1] Combination Registration No. C-2019/07/674.