United States:The ConJoin Group, a strategic transformative IT and business services company, has acquired PHNS, the leading provider of healthcare IT and business services for $250m.

The ConJoin Group transforms companies by reinvigorating their sales approach and building flexible global delivery platforms. ConJoin is led by industry veterans whose depth of understanding deliver real value to clients.

 PHNS’ core strength lies in its clinical domain expertise as a comprehensive provider of healthcare IT and business process systems; spanning data centers, help desk, telephony, clinical transformation, audit and all aspects of secure health information management. Together, as a combined entity, The ConJoin Group and PHNS will deliver world-class integrated solutions under the PHNS name.

 The new PHNS will prioritize ramping up existing product offering and expanding its scope and influence in the healthcare IT market. PHNS will leverage ConJoin’s powerful global delivery model to automate tasks that are digital and replicable to achieve significant operational efficiencies in product development, maintenance and support. ConJoin maintains operations in Boston, Toronto, Dallas and its centers of excellence in Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Recent US legislation has increased pressure on healthcare providers to improve, upgrade and modernize IT standards nationwide. The combined capability provided by the new PHNS will accelerate the adoption of high quality IT and business services in a way that is realistic and affordable for hospitals and healthcare providers.

 Commenting on the deal, the CEO of the new PHNS Richard S. Garnick said, “The ConJoin Group saw a significant opportunity to dramatically scale up operations and improve the PHNS product offering in response to unprecedented North American demand for healthcare IT services. The ConJoin Group’s global delivery model will prove a key point of competitive advantage for the company going forward.”

 Actis private equity firm backed the investment. Commenting on the transaction, Head of Actis South Asia, JM Trivedi, said “This deal builds on a deep tradition of Actis investing in the BPO sector, building on the success of Daksh (exited 2005) and our recent investment in BPO and KPO provider Integreon ( February 2010). Supporting the provision of a high quality service to healthcare providers aligns with both our investment thesis and our values.”

The Conjoin Group and Actis were advised by Jefferies & Co., Clifford Chance LLP, Hunton & Williams and Duff & Phelps. PHNS was advised by William Blair and Company and Jones Day.