UB group buys 2 US IT firms

Acquires Integral & Ventive to strengthen it's position in the IT space.

UB group Chairman Vijay Mallya's IT solutions company UBICS has acquired the Pittsburgh (US)-based Integral Strategies, a leading provider of diversified IT consulting services.

UBICS has also bagged the assets and business of the US-based Ventive, a provider of web-based enterprise solutions for staffing and consulting organisations.

Mallya told Business Standard: "UBICS recently acquired Integral and Ventive in a move to further strengthen UBICS' position in the IT solutions space." "Both the promoters, Girish Godbole of Integral Strategies and Sunil Patil of Ventive, have joined UBICS," Mallya added.

Mallya also told agencies that he was open to foreign direct investment in The Asian Age, in which the UB group holds a 35 per cent stake.

Founded in 1993, UBICS specialises in ERP and CRM package implementation and customisation, e-commerce and Internet services, client/server design and development, application maintenance programming, database systems and network administration, among others.

In an another development, Robert Harbage, president and chief executive officer, has stepped down from UBICS. Harbage's position has been taken over by Mallya, who is also the chairman of UBICS.

UBICS' executive management includes Patil, who is president, global solutions, Godbole, president, global services, and Lakshman Balasubramanyam, director of European operations at UBICS UK.

UBICS subsidiary SquareRadius, which provides integrated creative and technical solutions for the Internet, recently changed its name to UBICS Web Solutions and was integrated with UBICS. Its other division is UBICS healthcare solutions, which develops and implement telemedicine solutions.

UBICS previously acquired CobaltCreative, a Phoenix-based web design and development firm. In 2001, it had acquired the UK-based Oakwood Technical Services and the New Delhi-based DSF Internet.

Recently the company ran into trouble after it bought a Boeing 727 and leased it subsequently to a group company.