ET had first broken the transaction in its September 15 edition. While neither companies released any financial details of the matter, sources in the know told ET that the size of the deal was valued at nearly $2.5 billion.
Blackstone will be a majority partner, and will pay nearly $1 billion to secure their stake, sources had told ET earlier.
Founded in India, VFS Global is a spinoff of Swiss travel group Kuoni. It’s 90% owned by Swedish private equity firm EQT and 10% by the Kuoni Foundation, Hugentobler Foundation and founder CEO Zubin Karkaria.
KHF will continue as a minority partner.
“VFS spearheaded the visa outsourcing business and is today a global market leader, playing a crucial role in enabling access to travel for millions of people around the world in an efficient and secure manner. VFS’ local market expertise, unmatched global footprint and technology leadership makes the company a reliable partner to client governments across the world,” said Lionel Assant and Amit Dixit, Head of Blackstone Private Equity in Europe and Asia respectively.
“We look forward to helping the company capitalize on the global travel recovery, accelerate its digitization journey, and expand into adjacent services to further accelerate growth and create value for all stakeholders,” the duo further added.
“On behalf of the entire VFS Global team, I want to thank EQT for the very collaborative and value enhancing partnership over the past five years. We now look forward to further cementing and building upon our market-leading position with the help of Blackstone’s scale, expertise, and global network,” Karkaria said, who founded the company in 2001.
VFS Global services more than 60 client governments through roughly 3,500 visa application centres across 140 countries in five continents. The company said that since 2001, it has successfully processed over 230 million applications.
