Intelligroup eyes buyouts in BI, infra management space

The company, which has development centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore in India, and in the US, UK, Denmark and Japan, is pursuing a couple of acquisitions between Rs 60 crore and Rs 80 crore that have the right set of competencies in the business intelligence (BI) and infrastructure management space, according to its chief executive officer Vikram Gulati.

"We are currently in talks with a couple of companies that have a global delivery model with US-India and UK-India operations for possible acquisitions. Whether the acquisitions would happen during this year or not, we can't be too sure," he told Business Standard, while refusing to divulge further details.

Intelligroup had last year acquired IGS Novasoft, a UK-based company, which had a good SAP implementation methodology, for $3 million (Rs 12 crore).

The Andhra Pradesh government has allotted four acres of land to Intelligroup in the emerging IT hub at Kokapet on the city outskirts, where it plans to build its own campus that could accommodate around 2,000 professional. At present, the company employs 2,400 globally, of which around 1,800 work out of its Hyderabad and Bangalore centres.

"We are awaiting the state government's nod for taking up the development work on the land, which we are expecting sometime this year. The first phase of the project would house 600 employees and we should start moving into our campus in six to nine months from the date of commencing work on it," Gulati said, without spelling out investment figures.

Stating that the company was looking at a larger chunk of business from the insurance sector, courtesy the increasing adoption of SAP in a big way, he said the company expected to add a few more big-ticket insurance clients during the current year.

"The Hyderabad campus would primarily be catering to the insurance sector and add up to this growth," Gulati said. Intelligroup currently has four marquee clients in insurance.

The company, which follows a January-December financial year, reported fourth quarter 2007 revenues of $38.3 million (Rs 153.2 crore), as compared with $32 million (Rs 128 crore) in the corresponding quarter of 2006, an increase of 19.6 per cent.