Blackstone Said To Be In Talks To Take HR Outsourcing Company Public Via SPAC

Blackstone Group Inc BX may be about to take a human resources service provider public by way of a SPAC.

What Happened: Reuters reports, citing anonymous sources, that the private equity giant is in talks with investor Bill Foley to use his Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. as the vehicle to take public Illinois-based Alight Solutions LLC at a valuation of more than $8 billion.

Foley Trasimene is a SPAC that raised $900 million in May.

SPAC Returns: The duo have experience working together on SPACs. On Dec. 7, they agreed to this type of merger for Blackstone-held Paysafe Group Holdings in a $9 billion deal that included private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners. The SPAC vehicle for the deal also was one backed by Foley.

That deal will reportedly deliver Blackstone and CVC a return of three times their initial investment. Alight, based in Illinois, brings AI and data analytics into the world of human resources outsourcing. It operates on the "Business Process as a Service" (BPaaS) model, in the jargon of such things.

Blackstone bought Alight in 2017 from insurance broker Aon Plc for $4.3 billion.

Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels.