Trilegal, Sheppard act on $310 million acquisition of iMerit by EXL

ExlService Holdings, Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire iMerit in a transaction valued at up to $310 million in upfront and future consideration.

Trilegal advised iMerit and its shareholders on this transaction. The Firm's scope included advising on various structuring aspects of the transaction, including structuring pertaining to treatment of outstanding ESOPs of iMerit, and negotiating and finalising the share purchase agreement and ancillary documentation, including disclosure schedules, restrictive covenant agreements, and employment agreements. The Firm also advised iMerit in relation to the transition of its employees, and in negotiation and finalisation of the related documentation for the same, including transfer agreements, services agreements, and offer letters.

The transaction was led by Abhishek Guha (Partner) and Tanya Uppal (Partner), with support from Shreya Gokhale (Senior Associate) and Vijay Chawla (Senior Associate). The following provided support:

Labour and Employment law: Apeksha Mattoo (Partner), Maitreya Sharma (Senior Associate), Associates Achintya Anupam and Anjali AR.

Real Estate law: Monika Bhonsale (Partner), Uday Shah (Senior Associate), Muskan Dadia (Associate).

Competition law: Gauri Chhabra (Partner).

Intellectual Property law: Kirti Balasubramanian (Partner).

Technology, Media, and Telecommunications law: Jishnu Sanyal (Partner).

Sheppard advised EXL on this acquisition.

The transaction team consisted of Valerie Demont (Partner), Matt McCalip (Partner), Associates Teresita Acedo, Anushna Das and Claire Jang. They were assisted by the following:

Greg Berk (Partner), Brandon Buck (Associate), Michael Chan (Partner), Tracy Chau (Associate), Dmitriy Chelnitsky (Partner), Brian Egan (Associate), Sally Elshihabi (Special Counsel), Jonathan Finkel (Attorney), Melissa Hughes (Associate), Sean Kirby (Partner), Malika Levarlet (Attorney), Theodore Mayer (Associate), Carolyn Metnick (Partner), Jennifer Redmond (Partner), Tamar Rosenberg (Partner), Isaiah Smith (Associate), Niya Tang (Partner), Dimitris Vallindas (Partner), Michael Weisshar (Associate), Daniel Yannuzzi (Partner).

iMerit is a recognized leader in AI model training, evaluation and reinforcement learning, focused on helping its clients train large language and multimodal models to improve accuracy, precision and effectiveness.

ExlService Holdings, Inc. is a global data and AI company serving industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, media, retail, and others.

The acquisition will enhance EXL’s capacity to deliver measurable results from AI, foster collaborations with top foundation model developers, and broaden EXL’s presence in rapidly growing AI technology markets.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

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