Blackstone-led Consortium to Acquire China-based Pactera

Ropes & Gray represented the Blackstone-led buyer group consortium in the going-private transaction of China-based Pactera Technology International Ltd. (Pactera), which signed on October 17, 2013.

The buyer consortium is led by an affiliate of funds managed or advised by Blackstone and joined by several senior management members of Pactera, including its non-executive chairman, its chief executive officer and its executive committee members.

The Ropes & Gray team advising the buyer consortium is led by Hong Kong-based M&A partner James Lidbury, and included Shanghai-based partner Geoffrey Lin; U.S.-based partners David Chapin, Jay Kim, Elaine Murphy, Loretta Richard and Peter Welsh; and merger control counsel Deidre Johnson. 

Blackstone is a client of Ropes & Gray globally, as well as in Asia. The firm also advised Blackstone on its $3 billion buyout of Emdeon, a Tennessee-based health care information technology services company. 

This transaction is the latest of several private equity-sponsored take-privates of U.S.-listed Chinese firms on which the Ropes & Gray Hong Kong team has advised this year, including representing:

• China Everbright as a member of the buyer consortium in the US$3.5 billion take-private of Focus Media Holdings, which operates China’s largest lifestyle-targeted interactive digital media network.
• Private equity fund AlpInvest as part of the buyer consortium in the take-private of Nasdaq-listed Chinese telecommunications company AsiaInfo-Linkage.

“These milestone transactions illustrate how global private equity firms are looking for creative ways to invest and engage in the dynamic economies of Asia,” said Ropes & Gray Hong Kong partner Gary Li.