Moody's acquires Amba Investment Services

According to industry estimates, Moody's may have shelled out around $80-100 mn

Global credit rating agency Moody's Corporation has acquired Amba Investment Services, a knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services firm that provides investment research and quantitative analytics for global financial institutions.

The financial details were not disclosed. However according to industry estimates, Moody’s may have shelled out around $80-100 million towards this acquisition considering that Amba is expecting to generate close to $39 million in revenues in 2013. Post the acquisition, Amba will operate as part of Moody’s Analytics majority-owned subsidiary, Copal Partners.

Amba was founded in 2003 by four senior executives from Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and JP Morgan Andrew Houston, Mohan Alexander, Brad West, and Anand Aithal. The name ‘Amba’ is a combination of the first letter of each of its founders' names. The company has around 1,000 employees with delivery centres located in Costa Rica, India and Sri Lanka. In 2007, the company had raised $10 million from Helion Venture Partners.

"Amba is highly regarded for its offerings to investment research firms and asset managers, and Copal is known for its strong services for corporate finance. Together, their scale, talent and resources offer global financial institutions a broader array of research and analytics," said Mark Almeida, President of Moody's Analytics.

Amba was advised by Avendus Capital and its legal advisor was Jones Day.