Four Softs proposed buy to be over by Aug

Four Soft, which is coming out with an initial public offer on February 16, is expecting its proposed acquisition to get over by August 2004.

The company is raising Rs 19.87 crore via an initial public offering to part finance its proposed Rs 33.9 crore expenditure for the next 15 months. It has apportioned Rs 6 crore for the acquisition.

"We cannot comment at this point of time about the target for acquisition, because of Sebi stipulations. However, we can assure the investors that the acquisition exercise will be completed within the scheduled time," Palem Srikanth Reddy, managing director of Four Soft, said.

The company spelled out certain criteria for the acquisition target company -- the company should be operating in the same domain as Four Soft, ie, software solutions for transport and logistics be closely held and a company that has about 30 existing customers and 30 employees.

Another major component in the proposed project cost is setting up its own international marketing network. The company plans to spend about Rs 18.7 crore in setting up offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Amsterdam, New York, Houston and San Francisco.

"Depending on the channel partners alone for marketing our products overseas is not a feasible solution. We need to have our own marketing set up," said Srikanth.