Zensar Technlogies, one of the top 20 software service providers from India and a part of RPG Enterprises, today announced the acquisition of US-based PSI Holding Inc (Akibia) for $66 million in an all cash deal, along with its subsidiaries namely - Akibia, Inc, Aquila Technology Corp and Akibia B.V.
Under the agreement, Zensar will acquire all of the outstanding stock of Akibia through a merger process with Zensar’s wholly owned US subsidiary, Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Vice Chairman & CEO of Zensar told reporters, in a press conference.
As per the plan, the acquired firms will be integrated as a business unit of Zensar and the founder & chairman of Akibia Thomas Willson and its CEO Tom Tucker will join the management council of Zensar. The transaction is expected to close by end of December. The total employee strength of the company is 325.
This acquisition will build dual-shore end-to-end capabilities for Zensar in Infrastructure Management and Information Security solutions for American and European clients. With this, Zensar will be well positioned to deliver solutions that can transform the future of Infrastructure Management, Information Security and IM analytics around the world, he said.
According to Natarajan, the company has earmarked $100 million for acquisitions and it is open to acquire more companies with the remaining amount of $34 million and if the opportunity is really good, the company is ready to find more money. The fund is a combination of internal accruals and debt, he said.
In a year or so, the company will make another acquisition in the Latin American geography, he said.
“It is strategic to Zensar, as Akibia is a key player in the infrastructure management space with revenues of over $100 million and a robust management team in the US and Europe,” Chairman of RPG and Zensar, Harsh Goenka, said.
Zensar, that recently forayed into China by setting up a global delivery centre at Shanghai, hopes to achieve synergies by combining its remote infrastructure management offshore services for global clients with Akibia’s US and European data centre practice.
"Zensar’s Infrastructure Consulting and Data center Management capabilities, with Akibia’s cumulative knowledge, experience and best practices of supporting and securing mission-critical data centers will give us a full life cycle capability to service global customers and add over 300 outstanding global associates to the Zensar team” said Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Vice Chairman & Managing Director of Zensar.
The firm had been eyeing multiple acquisitions for the year to end March’11 and, Ganesh Natarajan, had earlier said, the firm is looking to buy US companies with revenues of $75-100 million. He had said the firm is targeting companies having offshore capabilities either as an application support or business intelligence or infrastructure management space.
This is the first big move after the Goenkas had an amicable division of businesses between brothers Harsh and Sanjeev Goenka. Zensar comes under the Mumbai-based sibling Harsh Goenka. At BSE, the Zensar scrip was up by 2.44% at Rs 161.80.