SHL put up for sale by HgCapital HgCapital is looking to sell SHL, the UK-based global leader in psychometric testing and the largest private employer of business psychologists in the world. The mid-market buy-out group has mandated Morgan Stanley to examine sales options for the business, which is valued at up to $700m, two people close to the situation said. It is aiming to cash in on a rapidly rising demand for psychometric tests as companies are turning towards online recruitment tests to cut costs. This has pushed SHL's revenue growth rate well above 10 per cent to more than $200m in the past year. SHL provides recruitment and employee development assessments for 80 per cent of the FTSE 100 and 50 per cent of the Fortune Global 500. Among its clients are Barclays, Coca-Cola and Vodafone. Its tests evaluate everything from a candidate's suitability for a job to his or her reliability, their likelihood to cause an accident, or the risk of absenteeism. The tests can also screen the predisposition of a bank manager or an entire trading floor to take excessive risks. HgCapital is hoping that the technology and service group will attract a wide spectrum of potential buyers, including private equity houses, software companies, human relations specialists, data groups and even social networks. It is also pondering a public listing as an alternative to an outright sale in a disposal process that is likely to start later this year. Led by David Leigh as chief executive, SHL has more than 850 employees and provides 25m assessments annually around the world. HgCapital took the group private in late 2006 for £100m and embarked on a rapid growth path with the business, sparking a transformation from paper and pencil-based products to web-based testing solutions. The expansion was interrupted by a revenue drop in 2009 amid the economic crisis. But one year ago, SHL made its biggest ever growth step and filled a regional hole by merging with PreVisor, the market leader in the US. The merger brought in Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a US private equity house, as a minority co-owner. HgCapital holds a more than 50 per cent stake while VSS and the management share the reminder. Private equity group HgCapital has a €2bn European buy-out fund and is known for its profound expertise in the technology and business service sector. The former private equity arm of Mercury Asset Management has recently bought back a majority stake in Iris Accountancy Solutions and Iris Software Group, two UK business software makers which it sold to US private equity investor Hellman & Friedman a few years ago.