Sierra Atlantic acquires Sceptre

Company eyes 47% growth in revenues to $50m this fiscal

Sierra Atlantic, a $30 million offshore enterprise applications provider, has acquired Boston-based Sceptre Database Consultants Inc for an undisclosed amount in a part cash/ part stock deal.

Sceptre is an enterprise application outsourcing and consulting services provider and had annual revenues of $4 million in the last fiscal.

This apart, Sierra Atlantic, which follows a January to December accounting year, expects to close the current year with total revenues of around $50 million, representing a 47 per cent growth.

Addressing a press conference, Sarath Sura, managing director of Sierra Atlantic Software Services Limited, said, "Sceptre has 75 active clients and a strong geographical presence in the North American eastern market. This acquisition can leverage our presence in this market."

"Sierra Atlantic earned revenues of $30 million as on December 31, 2004, and Sceptre, $4 million. We expect Sceptre"s revenues to grow to $7.5 million and our total revenues to $50 million by this year end," Sura said.

"In 2004, only two per cent of our business came from this market. With this acquisition we expect it to grow to 15 per cent," he added. The acquisition has been funded through internal accruals in a part cash and part stock deal and Sceptre is now completely merged into Sierra Atlantic, Inc.," Sura pointed out.

Sceptre has about 20 employees at present and Sierra plans to increase the headcount at this centre in the near future. Sceptre"s president Peter Borans will now be the vice-president of services (North America - east) for Sierra.

Sierra itself is expanding its global footprint by setting up offices in Paris and Dubai and is also increasing its focus on new verticals like finance, retail and telecom.

"We are planning to increase our focus on the finance, telecom and retail verticals in a couple of quarters from now," Sura said. "We are, at present, in talks with global retail houses like Walmart, to provide our services to them," he added.

"In the second quarter of 2005, we will also be expanding our global presence in cities like Paris and Dubai," Sura said. Sierra has a presence in cities like Toronto, Chicago, Dallas and London among others.

"Globally we have around 840 employees on our payrolls and we plan to increase this number to around 1,300-1,500 by the last quarter of 2005," he added.

Sierra is also developing a $12-million seven-acre campus in Hyderabad. While Phase 1 of the campus is expected to be ready by the second quarter of 2006, completion of Phase 2 is expected by the same time in 2007.

"Companies like Cognizant and Virtusa will be our neighbours at this campus," Sura said.