GE sells 4% Genpact shares for $100 mn

Following the sale, GE’s stake in the NYSE-listed BPO firm has come down to 18.8% from about 23% earlier. Private equity players General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital Partners have a combined stake of 52% in Genpact.

GE has sold 8 million shares at a price of $12.5 per share. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Saturday, Genpact said, “GE has agreed to sell, in a private transaction, approximately $100 million of Genpact common shares to an affiliate of a limited partner in one of Genpact’s other shareholders.”

Subject to the lock-up agreement that GE entered into with the underwriters of Genpact’s IPO, the 8 million shares would not enter the public trading market as a result of the transaction, it added.

“Genpact is a good partner and continues to provide valuable support to our operations. This transaction is simply a part of our normal and on-going portfolio management activities and we look forward to a long and productive relationship,” a GE spokesperson said.

“We welcome this diversification of our ownership base. We continue to have an excellent relationship with GE both as a client and as a shareholder. Our continuing significant revenue growth from GE is a reflection on the quality of this relationship,” Genpact president and CEO Pramod Bhasin said.

GE remains Genpact’s largest client, accounting for about 57.2% of the BPO’s revenue at the end of the July-September quarter this year. The BPO, which was a GE captive till 2004, got listed on NYSE in August and has a market cap of $3.03 billion.

Genpact raised $494.11 million in August through its IPO, though falling short of a previously-announced target of about $565-635 million. It had sold a 17% stake to the public, of which half was offloaded by GE and the PE investors while the remaining was through issue of fresh shares.