Symphony Technology lines up $900 mn for acquisitions

Symphony Technology Group (STG), the US-based strategic holding company founded by an Indian, plans to invest $900 million (around Rs 4,230 crore) to expand its group firms over the next three to four years.

“Most of the $900 million will be spent on acquisitions. The current economic environment does not change our strategy, which is to invest in companies in the US, Europe and India,” Romesh Wadhwani, chairman, STG, told Business Standard. Wadhwani had earlier said that his acquisition targets are from software and services, financial services, retail, consumer goods and telecom verticals.

The over $2-billion company wants to achieve a revenue target of $5 billion by 2010-11, and believes the acquisition route to be just right to achieve this target. Wadhwani feels that despite the current slowdown it is an achievable target. “I am still hopeful that STG can be a $5- billion revenue firm in 2010 or 2011, but we have a lot of work ahead of us to get there,” he said. “I am hopeful that the economic recession in the US will affect Symphony less than the traditional IT services players since its customers are less affected by the recession,” he added.

The group so far has nine companies including Bangalore-based Symphony Services and Symphony Marketing Solutions. Of these, nine firms, many have significant offshore presence in India.

STG had raised $1 billion in December last year, of which $500 million was contributed by Wadhwani, while around $300 million came from the Government of Singapore and $100 million each from two US universities.

Of the $1 billion raised, the company has spent $100 million for the acquisition of US-based Netik and Sweden-headquartered Teleca.

Wadhwani also said that he hopes to list Symphony Services by 2009 as long as its maintains its growth rate and keeps improving its profitability.