Blue Star Infotech eyes acquisition in US

Company strengthening banking lines to make US acquisition this year

Continuing its inorganic growth strategy, Blue Star Infotech is planning an acquisition in the US this year and is currently engaged in building its banking lines for the same.

“We are currently engaged in making financial provisions for the acquisition that we intend to make in the US this year,” chief executive officer and managing director Sunil Bhatia told Business Standard.

This is also evident from the company’s profit-and-loss statement for the March quarter where its finance cost has jumped to Rs 93 lakh from Rs 2 lakh in the corresponding period last year and Rs 10 lakh in the December quarter.

“The US market looks very promising in the coming year and hence the acquisition has been planned there,” Bhatia added without divulging the size of acquisition.

Since the company is looking for digital transformation in order to keep itself in pace with the changing technological trend, its acquisition will also be focused towards the similar area mainly in analytics or mobility.

The company is bullish on travel and hospitality, hi-tech and health care verticals and said the US market is expected draw good business. “Of our total revenues, about 50 percent comes from the US, 12-15 percent from Europe and balance from rest of the world,”said Bhatia. “The US, the Asia and Europe, in that order, look promising to us in the current year. Though things have improved in Europe in the last few quarters, the Ukraine issue is keeping us slightly concerned going ahead,” said Bhatia.

The company reported a consolidated top line of Rs 78 crore in the March quarter, up 54 per cent year-on-year.

Going ahead, Blue Star Infotech also plans to increase its investment towards improving its intellectual property (IP) and expansion of labs.

Blue Star Infotech's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), along with various in-house labs, is instrumental in keeping abreast of global technology trends and provides strategic technological directions to its customers.

"At our labs, we will be extending services in big data, hardware and testing going ahead and so budget allocation towards these will also go up," Bhatia said.

ATG focuses on keeping track of both present-day technologies and emerging, disruptive advancements, and examines application of these to various business scenarios.