Conduent Agrees To Sell Portion Of HR Business In Bid To Cut Costs

Conduent has agreed to sell off part of its storied human resources business to a private equity company just months after promising to divest up to $500 million of revenue.

’Together with our recent leadership hires and platform improvements, we are well positioned to help our clients modernize their HR processes, create seamless experiences for their employees and accelerate our growth in HR services,’ Christine Landry, group chief executive of Conduent, Consumer & Industrials, said in a statement.

The buyer is H.I.G. Capital, a Miami-based global private equity company that last July purchased U.S. government solution provider NCI. The firm also holds stakes in several other solution providers including CXtec, Milestone Technologies, Teracai and Trace3 . Rick Rosen, the executive managing director, did not return a call for comment about the Conduent purchase.

[RELATED: Conduent Closes 80 Sites, Looks To Exit Non-Core Businesses In Push To Cut Costs By $700M]

Conduent is evaluating all of the assets it inherited when it split from Xerox at the beginning of 2017, with the goal of creating a leaner organization that's more targeted to their core operations. In a statement, Conduent said that after the sale they will be focused on digital business platforms, as well as retaining Human Resources Outsourcing, Total Benefits Outsourcing, BenefitWallet and RightOpt.

The businesses that are being sold represent $278 million of the roughly $500 million Conduent said it planned to eliminate this year.

Conduent Human Resource Services, formerly known as Buck Consultants, traces its history to 1916 when it was founded by New York actuary George B. Buck Sr. Through sales and acquisitions, it was eventually owned by Xerox and then Conduent.

According to the statement, Citigroup Global Markets Inc. is serving as exclusive financial adviser and Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP is serving as legal counsel to Conduent. The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to be complete in the second half of this year.