Mumbai: EQT Partners is looking to raise nearly $1 billion (₹8,996 crore) by selling its entire 40% stake in CitiusTech, a global healthcare technology, analytics and consulting company, monetising its six-year-old investment, said people aware of the matter.
The Swedish buyout group is working with advisors to reach out to potential private equity suitors, the people said. The stake sale could value the company at $2.2-$2.4 billion or 18-20x of its FY26 Ebitda of around $120 million, they said.
EQT’s plans come at a time when CitiusTech is seeing a steady uptick in growth momentum after nearly two years of muted sales due to reduced technology budgets globally.
Founded by serial tech entrepreneur Rizwan Koita and his fellow IIT alumnus Jagdish Moorjani, CitiusTech is owned 40% each by EQT (formerly Baring Private Equity Asia) and Bain Capital. The remaining stake is held by the founders and employees.
Bain bought half of EQT’s 80% holding in 2022 for about $960 million in a closely fought bidding war with Fujitsu of Japan and Apax Partners.
However, EQT may currently find it difficult to earn a significant premium from the Bain round and is likely to carry out the proposed deal at the same valuation, said the people cited above. Other shareholders are also unlikely to cash out immediately unless strategic interests see a significant valuation jump.
EQT first invested in CitiusTech in 2019, acquiring about 80% from the founders and General Atlantic (GA), valuing the company at a little over $1 billion. GA, the first large institutional investor in the company, had deployed $111 million in 2014.
“EQT has already recovered its capital investments with handsome returns from their partial stake sale to Bain,” said a tech sector analyst familiar with the company’s business performance. “The valuation doubled in just three years. But with macro headwinds and cuts across IT spends worldwide, the margins in the business have shrunk since 2022. The growth momentum though, is coming back.”
EQT did not respond to ET’s queries.
CitiusTech is one of the world’s leading healthcare IT and digital consulting companies. With a workforce of more than 7,500 healthcare tech professionals, the company supports over 140 clients, including major health insurers, hospitals, and medical technology and life sciences companies. It earns about 95% of its revenues from the US though it has been trying to diversify its footprint in Europe and Japan
CitiusTech is one of the world’s leading healthcare IT and digital consulting companies. With a workforce of more than 7,500 healthcare tech professionals, the company supports over 140 clients, including major health insurers, hospitals, and medical technology and life sciences companies. It earns about 95% of its revenues from the US though it has been trying to diversify its footprint in Europe and Japan
CitiusTech counts DaVita, MultiPlan, Centra Health, Watson Health Imaging, Vital Images, NantHealth, Novant Health, Kern Health Systems and Santa Clara Family Health Plan, among its major clients.
Its core capabilities span healthcare interoperability, secure data management, analytics, patient experience solutions, value-based care, medical imaging, connected health, care coordination, and population health management.
To strengthen its global footprint, CitiusTech has made several acquisitions in recent years. In August, it acquired Health Data Movers, a US-based firm with deep expertise in Epic Systems, Workday, ServiceNow, and other healthcare platforms. Previous buys include Wilco Source, a Salesforce health-cloud specialist, and SDLC Partners, which serves leading US payer organisations.
Some of those acquisitions faced challenges for the companies after key clients departed following their buyouts, prompting Citius Tech to change its CEO and appoint Rajan Kohli, a former Wipro veteran in 2023. CitiusTech competes with global healthcare and health-IT players such as RED.Health, Falck, NNIT, AMN Healthcare, Alira Health, Nordic, and Surgery Partners, according to Tracxn.
There have been reports that the company will evaluate an IPO this year, either in the US or India.
The company had previously stated a target of $1 billion in revenue by FY28, which it is confident of achieving. Kohli had said in earlier media interactions that it is expecting mid-teens revenue growth in FY26, after high single-digit revenue growth in FY25.
“Being a specialised player in healthcare has helped the company rebound as demand for healthcare technology services is seeing a comeback among medtech, healthcare, and life sciences companies,” said the CEO of a rival company. “But for the past two years, business has been flat. Between FY23-26, Ebitda growth in my assumption would be 5-7% in absolute terms.”
Following the Hi-Tech Act in 2010 that forced US medical records to get digitised, a global trend across Europe and pockets of Asia has thrown open new business opportunities for tech providers. The total healthcare spending in the US is projected to surge to $6.2 trillion by 2028 from $4.7 trillion in 2023. Within this, spending on inpatient and outpatient care spending is expected to rise to $3.5 trillion from $2.7 trillion.
