Ascentium eyes acquisitions for India expansion
Singapore-based professional services firm Ascentium is eyeing acquisitions to expand its operations in India, aiming to build a larger platform for Asia-centric corporate services, according to group CEO Lennard Yong. The three-year-old company, backed by private equity firm Hillhouse Investment, has swiftly grown its presence across 27 markets, employing around 3,000 people.
India, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are key markets driving the firm's growth strategy, with a strong focus on Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
Ascentium's strategy revolves around aiding Asian companies in their international expansion while assisting foreign businesses entering India and other Asian markets. The firm has set up operations in India, rebranding its India operations as Ascentium India after acquiring InCorp in 2024. The team comprising nearly 350 employees, including over 150 chartered accountants, spans across 17 offices in eight cities.
The firm has completed seven acquisitions in India since 2019 and is in the process of negotiating one more deal, along with discussions for a couple of additional acquisitions. Manish Modi, CEO of Ascentium India, revealed that the group has evaluated over 65 acquisition opportunities globally, resulting in 16 successful acquisitions.
Modi highlighted the challenge of negotiating deals with local firms in India, given the market's fragmentation and the dominance of the Big Four accounting firms - PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and EY.
Yong emphasized the opportunity in a structural gap within India's professional services sector, where the Big Four firms dominate the upper echelons of the market. Ascentium's unique differentiator lies in its corporate structure - unlike global accounting networks where member firms operate as independent partnerships, Ascentium functions as a single corporation with Manish Modi and Lennard Yong sharing a single P&L.
The company's leadership is incentivized on the same P&L, fostering a culture of shared success where neither leader receives dividends until the other does. To support this growth, Ascentium is developing its own data lake, leveraging expertise from corporate services engagements, and planning to deploy agentic AI in specific business operations.
Written by urgent.news from The Economic Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
