Growth in Continental Europe will continue. It is expected to grow at around 7 per cent.
British consultancy major Axon Group on Thursday decided to go ahead with a pound 441-million acquisition offer from HCL Technologies, while withdrawing its support to a smaller bid from Infosys.
On September 26, HCL Technologies announced the terms of a cash offer to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Axon at a price of 650 pence per Axon share. On October 8, HCL EAS, the indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of HCL Technologies, acquired 3,01,623 Axon shares which represent approximately 0.47 per cent of the current issued share capital of Axon.
The shares represent around 0.2 per cent of the existing issued share capital of Axon. The undertakings, according to a BSE announcement, remain binding even if a higher offer is made by a third party, but cease to be binding if the HCL scheme is withdrawn or lapses, or if the HCL acquisition is implemented by way of a takeover offer.
"We had raised a debt of $585 million for acquiring Axon which is maturing in December 2009. We have a cash position of $412 million. We will pay the debt out of the cash and raise a small debt," HCL Technologies Executive Vice-President (Finance) Anil Chanana said. HCL had acquired Axon for pound 441 million ($678 million) in December last year, funded partly by a short-term loan of $585 million.
Raises offer 8.3 per cent; Infosys says it is 'considering its position'.
Infosys had bid at 600 pence a share for the UK company. Infosys will get the one per cent inducement fee that Axon has to pay to the party unable to close the deal.
Steve Cardell, CEO of HCL Axon, spoke to Pallavi Aiyar about why, despite the reservations many analysts had, the move appears to have paid off for both entities.
A 700-750 pence per share final price for Axon ($900-910 million) cannot be ruled out by the time the bidding war ends, say CLSA analysts. However, regardless of whoever wins this largest overseas acquisition, Emkay Global Financial Services analysts opine that Axon could well prove to be a winner's curse since a long-drawn bidding war might tell on the bottom lines of both firms.
With India's two leading IT outsourcing companies, Infosys and HCL Technologies, vying to acquire the UK-based consulting firm Axon, SAP implementation is back in focus.
HCL's president & CEO Anant Gupta talked to Business Standard about the demand environment, its in the European market and Roshni Nadar's induction into the company's board of directors.
Anant Gupta, HCL Technologies' chief has an amazing success formula to get things done.
Wipro sees a silver lining in Q1; others say recovery by 2009-end.
When the firm decides what to do, we will evaluate it.
A McKinsey study on the last slowdown of 2001-2002 showed the companies that emerged successfully from the downturn were those that used their cash, did lots of mergers and acquisitions, and stepped on the accelerator.
The $4.6-billion company, which had earlier made an unsuccessful bid to acquire SAP consulting firm Axon that was latter acquired by HCL, would prefer acquiring companies overseas where growing organically is a little challenge, the Bangalore-headquartered company's CEO and MD S (Kris) Gopalakrishna said.
The Bangalore-headquartered company is believed to be evaluating two-three companies, which are in the revenue bracket of $100-200 million to eliminate some gaps that exist in its services offerings and increase focus on certain verticals, which have been least affected in the midst of the economic slowdown. It's reliably learnt that the company is looking at healthcare and energy and utilities as the two major areas for possible acquisitions.
Eyeing to make 8 buys to meet their revenue guidance.
The analyst community tracking the Indian IT services industry took special note of Accenture's first quarter (Q1) performance, which showcased the rapid growth of its consulting business that outperformed its outsourcing business. Bookings indicate that the trend will continue. Consulting bookings increased 41.6 per cent year-on-year (yoy) to $9.4 billion, higher than the 17.6 per cent growth in outsourcing to $7.4 billion. The management commentary was also more bullish on the consulting business.
Pravin Rao says firms with revenue of $600-700 millon will be preferred.
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While cost pressures could partly offset the expected gains, given the currency hedging by companies the gains will not accrue immediately.
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