Lionbridge business to get Bowne buyout boost

The Indian content business of Lionbridge Technology is set to grow two fold, said Jay Sitaram, vice-president, country manager, Lionbridge India, close on the heels of the US-based Lionbridge Inc's acquisition of Bowne Global Solutions (BGS).

On June 29, Lionbridge announced that a definitive agreement to acquire Bowne Global Solutions, a division of Bowne & Co, for at least $180 million has been signed.

Both Lionbridge and Bowne Global Solutions provide globalisation services that are custom made to linguistic, technical and cultural requirements of customers worldwide.

Sitaram said, post -acquisition, India will become one-point contact for all global centres for internationalisation of content "" standardisation of English content to make it easier to be translated in different languages.

He said that Lionbridge India currently employs around 300-400 persons and may scale up its operations to 800.

The transaction pairs two leading organisations in the estimated $6 billion globalisation outsourcing industry, creating a $400 million provider with global scale across more than 25 countries and having approximately 500 customers.

Sitaram said that Bowne's focus was more on the US and Europe markets which would now be serviced effectively from India.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2005 and so Indian operations will begin to see the operational scale up by the end of this year.

Under the terms of the agreement, Bowne will receive $130 million in cash, up to 9.4 million shares of Lionbridge common stock, subject to adjustment, and a subordinated note of no more than $20 million.

In addition, Bowne will hold one director seat on the Lionbridge board of directors.