Saksoft buys UK firm for Rs 77 crore

Saksoft, business intelligence and software solutions provider, has bought 100 per cent stake in the UK-based Acuma for $17 million (around Rs 77 crore).

The deal between Saksoft, which is catering to the the BFSI segment, and Acuma, an information value management solutions provider, will help the former to branch out its business in the UK and other European countries. Furthermore, the acquisition will provide opportunities to the company to add new verticals like telecom to its fold.

Aditya Krishna, managing director, Saksoft, said the combined entity's offering would be multi-verticals and multi-services like domain experts and back-end domain service specialists. David Ince, Acuma, CEO, added that Acuma can scale up the business model through onsite resources and leveraging on the offshore resources of Saksoft.

Saksoft has funded the acquisition, which becomes effective from October 1, through internal accruals and debt.

Acuma had reported $20 million revenue in 2005 by providing business intelligence, data warehousing, data integration, data quality improvement and testing services. It also offers licencing and training services from its stable. Acuma, headquartered in Reading, Berkshire, has offices in Manchester and an offshore development centre in Hyderabad.

Acuma has about 12-15 customers in different verticals and employs 80 hands. Its Hyderabad operations are manned by 15 professionals.

Post-acquisition, Acuma will become part of the Chennai-based listed company which employs 350 people and has two offshore development centres in India (Chennai and Noida) with 750 seats.

The company posted a revenue of Rs 50 crore for the year ended March 2006.