Infosys, India’s second largest IT services company has completed the acquisition of Lodestone Holding, a Switzerland-based management consulting firm it had announced to acquire last month.
Post the acquisition, Infosys intends to retain the brand identity of Lodestone for about a year, according to a senior company official. For the time being, it will operate as a subsidiary of Infosys in Europe.
“In the first year, we want to leverage their brand as well. The new entity will be called Infosys Lodestone. But after sometime, we will drop the Lodestone tag and it will be completely integrated with Infosys,” B G Srinivas, board member and Head of Europe, Infosys told Business Standard in a recent interview.
He said as far as clients are concerned, “we need to be seamless as one Infosys”.
The acquisition will strengthen Infosys’s management consulting capabilities adding more than 700 experienced consultants and 200 clients in areas such as manufacturing and automotive and life sciences industries, the company said in a statement to the BSE on Monday.
Srinivas said the immediate priority before Infosys Lodestone will be to explore new avenues in continental Europe where Lodestone already has established its footprint. “Very soon, we will formulate a joint plan to address the continental Europe taking our combined capabilities,” added Srinivas.
In September this year, Infosys had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Lodestone Holding for a consideration of Swiss Franc 330 million (about $345 million or Rs 1,930 crore) in an all-cash deal. The amount considered for the acquisition is about 1.3 times the revenues Loadstone was expected to garner in calendar year 2012.