EQT buys HK compliance and integrity service provider Dataflow

The financial details of investment were not disclosed but the deal is understood to fall within the fund sweet spot of EUR80-200 million ($107-270 million) for Asia investments. According to a release, the founders and the management will remain significant minority shareholders and will further invest alongside EQT.

Set up in 2006, Dataflow provides immigration compliance and verification services to governments, government-sanctioned authorities and private institutions looking to check the credentials of overseas employees. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the Company has operations in Singapore, Malaysia, India, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

Its service helps clients to conduct primary source verification (PSV) on the credentials of highly skilled professionals such as doctors, nurses and engineers. The company has relationships with over 25,000 issuing authorities such as schools and universities. Currently, Dataflow employs 45 people and claims to processes more than 200,000 applications from 168 countries, annually.

EQT intends to both support the company's continued growth and the development of new products. It is also looking to leverage its own industrial network to expand the firm's client base. The demand for PSV services is said to have grown in recent years with the increasing need for highly skilled specialists to go overseas.

"You could say it is a global phenomenon, with more and more highly skilled professionals moving out of country to work," Tak Wai Chung, a partner at EQT Partners, told AVCJ. "So there is potential for it to be a global platform."

This deal represents EQT's third Asian investment from its global mid-market fund which reached a final close of EUR1.1 billion in January. The fund focuses on middle market buyouts and growth equity investments in Greater China, Southeast Asia and Northern Europe

Its other Asia investments are China F&B Group - the Chinese franchise operator of international restaurant chains Dairy Queen and Papa John's Pizza which was bought last December - and Australian radiology provider I-Med Network Radiology which was acquired in March.

 

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• Topics
• Technology
• Buyouts
• Greater China
• EQT Partners
• buyout
• Technology
• Hong Kong (China)