GCI buys 60% of Planetasia

Plans another acquisition for BPO soon

Global Consultants Incorporated (GCI), an IT services and solutions company based in the US, has picked up a majority stake in Planetasia, a Microland Group company, which offers solutions in the e-technology space.

Announcing it here on Wednesday, Pradeep Kar, chairman and MD, Microland said, "Parts of the holdings of the investors of Planetasia have been sold to GCI. The previous investors "" ICICI Ventures, Microland and J P Morgan "" will continue to be shareholders in the company. Their equity will now constitute around 40 per cent of Planetasia."

With this shift in the equity structure, Planetasia becomes 'technically and legally' a subsidiary of GCI even as existing business and management continues to remain the same. GCI did not completely rule out the idea of picking up the rest of the stake in Planetasia in the future, saying that nothing of that sort was planned for the immediate future.

"We will leverage on Planetasia's strong offshore presence and technical knowhow to provide additional and better services to the existing clients," said Hiten Patel, CEO of GCI. GCI already has development centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Patel said that GCI will seek to acquire another small player to set up a captive BPO centre in India within the next two years.

The acquisition will lead to organisational changes within Planetasia which will involve increased verticalisation of processes and increased building of domain knowledge. The company will also grow by at least 40 per cent during the year, said Jawahar Bekay, CEO of Planetasia.

"We hope to close this fiscal with $8 million to $10 million in topline. We have been profitable for the last four quarters but the margins still remain in the single digits. We are planning to grow this to at least 15 per cent next year," Bekay added.

Formed in 1997, Planetasia and its promoter Microland were hit badly following the failure of their portal indya.com. The last two years were spent by both companies on the revival path. GCI, formed in 1991, offers services in the areas of BFSI, telecom and manufacturing among others.