Thursday, July 26, 2007

General Atlantic invests $60 mn in IBS Software


Private equity (PE) investor General Atlantic Llc. (GA), headquartered in New York, has stepped up its pace of dealmaking in the country. It has closed three deals worth more than $175 million (about Rs744 crore) in the first seven months of the year, including the $60 million investment in Thiruvananthapuram-based transportation and logistics software firm IBS Software Services that was announced on Wednesday. The change of pace, in terms of the number of deals, is significant when seen in the context of the six deals the $17 billion PE firm had concluded till December 2006, five years after it started investing here in 2002.

IBS marks GA’s ninth investment in India and its fourth in the information technology services sector. The firm has invested more than $700 million in the country till date and its largest investment here has been $250 million in Gurgaon-based business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Genpact Ltd in 2004 for a 30% stake. The BPO, which was spun off from General Electric Co., will make an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange soon and expects to raise $731 million. GA is expected to partially exit Genpact at the time of the listing.

The PE investor has taken a minority stake in IBS Software Services, but the percentage was not disclosed. IBS Software Services plans to use the funding to boost its sales and marketing teams, increase its business consulting services and make two acquisitions in the US or Europe.

Read more in The Livemint article.

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