Samara Capital, a private equity fund, has bought over Sanjay Maintenance Services Pvt. Ltd. (SMS), one of the largest facilities management company. Samara is backed by a management team comprising Jolly Kochery, a facilities management industry veteran. Founded in 1968, SMS primarily operates in the BFSI, IT/ITES, manufacturing, retail and office space segments and employs nearly 16,000 plus people. “We will look at acquiring smaller companies with soft and hard engineering services offerings in the north as well as south India. We are not into cash management or security services,” Kochery has stated.
He plans on taking the topline from RS 300 crore currently to about Rs 700-800 crore by 2020. “SMS is dominant in the BFSI space and we have a great management team to take it to the next level.”
Facilities management business in India is highly fragmented with around 70-80% of it in the unorganized space. The organized business in the sector is pegged at around $4-5 billion, according to various estimates. Some of the leading domestic players are backed by private equity funds, making the sector one of the sought after high cash flow generating sector for PE funds.
Some of the recent investments in the sector by PE funds includes CX’s investment in SIS, Motilal Oswal PE’s investment in Updater Services, Kotak Mahindra PE’s investment in BVG, True North’s investment in HiCare, TVS Capital’s former investment in Dusters among others. Fairfax-controlled listed business services provider Quess Corp has been growing through acquisitions.
