S Chand soars higher with new acquisition and IPO in the offing!

Inorganic growth through acquisitions has been a core strategy at S Chand And Company Limited and the acquisition of Chhaya Prakashani is another feather in its cap. Not resting on its past laurels, this education content-focused company has filed for a DRHP with SEBI for an initial public offering (IPO) of an estimated size of Rs. 650 Crores, as per market sources.

Ankita Gupta, Shalini Biswas, Dinesh Jhunjhnuwala, Himanshu Gupta and Sumit Biswas celebrating the acquisition of Chhaya Prakashani by S Chand And Company Limited.Recently, education content provider company, S Chand And Company Limited filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI for an IPO. According to the draft papers filed, the company is looking to raise fresh funds to the tune of Rs. 300 Crores in addition to an offer for sale by existing shareholders of the company. Private equity fund Everstone Capital is looking to partially exit its four-year-old investment in the Company through an offer for sale of about 48 lakh shares. Apart from that, the promoter group of the company is looking to cumulatively sell around 9.5 lakh shares.

In the recent past, the company acquired a majority stake in Kolkata-based education content company Chhaya Prakashani Private Limited, making it one of the largest transactions in education content and publishing. Chhaya Prakashani is a leading publisher of K-12 educational content in the West Bengal market.

Earlier, S Chand had fully acquired Vikas Publishing House Private Limited in 2012 and New Saraswati House Private Limited in 2014.

Talking about the acquisition, Dinesh Jhunjhnuwala, vice chairman, S Chand And Company Limited added, “Chhaya is a regional educational content provider in Eastern India, mainly into K-12 segment. This acquisition will help expand our presence in Eastern India as well as state board schools in West Bengal.”

The group has also made several investments in education start-ups, including investment in Testbook.com, an online test preparation platform for competitive exams and ed-tech startup FlipClass.