In a pre-IPO initiative, CIEL HR, a Chennai-based recruitment and staffing services company, plans to raise ₹50-70 crore private equity funds. The company plans to go public in three years, said its Chairman K Pandia Rajan.

Investment advisors are talking to various PE firms to raise funds, said Rajan, who re-joined the company as chairman after taking a sabbatical from politics for the next five years to focus on the HR business. He was a Minister in the previous AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu.

CIEL has placed more than 55,000 candidates in around 2,200 companies since it started in August 2015. The company was listed among the largest staffing companies in India at 14th place by revenue in a report published in February, 2021 by Staffing Industry Analyst, he said.

“Now our focus will be on deepening our depth,” Rajan told newspersons on his re-joining CIEL as Chairman and the company’s growth plans.

For the fiscal ending March 31, 2021, the company reported revenue of ₹306 crore. In the current fiscal, the target is to clock revenue of ₹450 crore and reach ₹1,000 crore at the time of the IPO in three years, said Rajan.

Rajan was one of the pioneers in India’s HR industry. In 1992 he launched Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd, a HR service provider to tap into opportunities arising out of the 1991 economic liberalisation policies in India. In 2004, Ma Foi merged with the Netherlands-based Vedior. Four years later, Randstad (also based in the Netherlands) took over Vedior.

“Having spent the last five years in politics, it is an emotional homecoming for me. I will now give 100 per cent of my time to the business,” he said.

Rajan said he would continue to be a member of the AIADMK but will be away from active politics for the next five years. He unsuccessfully contested from the Avadi constituency in the 2021 Assembly elections.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW