Atos hires Sean Narayanan as it looks to buy Perot Systems

The French IT services firm is touted to be top favourite to acquire Perot from Dell

Even as it is in talks with Dell to acquire the Perot Systems business, French IT services and solutions provider Atos has strengthened its senior leadership by hiring a key executive to manage its global delivery. The Euronext-listed company has appointed Sean Narayanan, former chairman and managing director for LiquidHub India, as its chief operating officer (COO) and head of global delivery for its consulting and system integration business. Before joining LiquidHub in July 2014, Narayanan was a key executive at IGATE (now part of Capgemini), where he was the chief delivery officer and also a board member of one of its business units.

Narayanan’s joining of Atos assumes significance at a time when the company is engaged in serious talks with Dell to acquire the Perot Systems business. According to several sources in the know, Atos is learnt to have outbid most other suitors including India’s top IT outsourcing services company Tata Consultancy Services. “The discussion is reaching a stage of finality,” said a top official who was previously engaged in the conversation with the company. “Atos might have already made it,” added the source.

A Dell spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. “We won’t have any comment on speculation regarding the Dell Services business,” a global spokesperson of the company replied in response to an email query. A detailed questionnaire sent to Atos’ global communication team members on Monday evening did not elicit any response.

Founded in 1988 by Ross Perot, a former independent candidate for the US Presidential election, Perot Systems was acquired by Dell in 2009 for $3.9 billion. Dell, primarily a hardware company then, was looking to build its capabilities in the services space. The Perot Systems business now accounts for the major part of Dell’s services business, which is headed by former Wipro joint CEO Suresh Vaswani.

According to analysts tracking the company, the company’s valuation has not grown much since Dell bought it. Dell has around 50,000 employees for its services business.

For Atos, which is still heavily focused on Europe and is looking to build ready-to-leverage capabilities in the US, the acquisition of Perot Systems makes sense, say analysts.

The company’s intent to go for an aggressive acquisition-led growth was clear when it was in talks with IGATE last year for an acquisition. Its European IT services major Capgemini acquired the firm. The acquisition of Xerox’s IT outsourcing business late 2015 had already given Atos good scale in the services space.

“If Atos seals the deal with Dell, the acquisition would give it onshore presence in the US, which it has been trying to build. It can also have strong delivery presence in India as the European company still lags behind most global IT services and consulting companies,” said a senior investor source.