Altruist Tech acquires Swedish telecom firm Teligent

Chandigarh-based Altruist Technologies Pvt Ltd, a value-added services provider to various telecom players like Airtel, Tata Teleservices, Aircel, Vodafone, among others, has acquired the Sweden-based Teligent Telecom, supplier of infrastructure solutions and value-added services to telecom carriers, in an all-cash transaction.

The deal, valued at €13-14 million (Rs 88-95 crore), is likely to help the seven-year-old Altruist in doubling its revenues in the financial year 2012-13 and also set up a launchpad into developed markets like Europe and the United States. While Altruist has presence in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the African continent, the transaction will expand its presence in Europe, North Africa and US.

Speaking to Business Standard, Anuj Aggarwal, director, Altruist Technologies (P) Ltd, said, “We picked up 100 per cent stake in Teligent Telecom, a supplier of infrastructure solutions and value-added services to telecom carriers, for €13-14 million (Rs 88-95 crore).

The deal value includes both up-front payment and earn-out portion, which will be paid depending on achievement of revenue targets in December.” The company has funded the acquisition mostly through internal accruals and some debt.

“With this acquisition, Teligent will serve as the platform for our entry into developed markets as business development from ground zero in developed markets is fairly tough. It will start as our footprint in these market and we will look to add more services in those markets,” he added.

Teligent expects revenues of €14-15 million (Rs 95-102 crore), which would help Altruist nearly double its net revenue at the end of the current financial year to €27-30 million (Rs 183-203 crore), said Aggarwal.

Aggarwal said Teligent currently provides mobile value-added services of a traditional nature like voicemail and messaging. Its clients include leading mobile players like BT, Vodafone, Telenor, Maroc Telecom and DTMS. Further, in US, Teligent offers a product which helps hearing or speech impaired people to communicate over a call networking, mobile advertising, rich media content and value-added services for telecoms operator and brands.

Also, the company, which has now become a subsidiary of Altruist, will continue to operate under its own brand name, given its reputation in the market.

It is worth mentioning that Altruist had a fairly aggressive inorganic strategy, with this being its fourth acquisition in the last four years. Though Aggarwal says it continues to speak with potential targets, it may take some time before they close their next deal. “Given the size of this acquisition relative to our size, it is quite big, the idea is to digest this and then do more transactions,” he said. However, he hinted at setting up operations in East Africa through organic route.

In 2009, Altruist acquired Mumbai based Mobile2Win in a share swap transaction. This was followed in 2011 with the acquisition of web and US-based mobile technology firm RelayStrategy LLC, which builds mobile applications for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone platforms. Altruist also acquired Delhi's Mobisoft Telesolutions, which runs the website Phoneytunes.com, offering mobile wallpapers and ring tones, in 2011. It also invested seed capital in a Mumbai-based mobile gaming start-up called Vegam, for a minority stake.