Capgemini may acquire Igate, take it private

BENGALURU: Europe’s biggest IT services company Capgemini is likely to acquire Nasdaq-listed Igate, multiple sources told TOI.
If the deal goes through, it will be one of the biggest M&As in the IT services space. Igate, founded by Sunil Wadhwani and Ashok Trivedi and with most of its employees in India, had revenue of $1.27 billion in 2014 and its market capitalization now stands at $3.6 billion dollars.
HP’s $13.9 billion acquisition of EDS in 2008 has been one of the biggest so far. More recently, Canada’s CGI acquired UK’s Logica for $2.6 billion.
Speculation about Igate being sold started soon after private equity giant Apax Partners, which financed much of Igate’s $1.2-billion acquisition of Patni Computer Systems in 2011, converted its debt into equity four months ago to become the largest shareholder in the company.
Apax now owns 29% stake in Igate, while Igate founders together hold 25% of the shares. Sources told TOI that Capgemini is looking at acquiring the 54% stake held by the promoters and Apax initially. They said it may later take Igate private by buying out the shares of other shareholders.
When asked about the possible acquisition, Capgemini told TOI, “We do not comment on market rumours or speculation.” Igate had not responded to queries at the time of going to print.
There has been talk of French IT company Atos and BPO major Genpact looking at acquiring Igate, but Capgemini is said to have nearly sealed the deal.
Igate will enable the 10-billion-euro, Paris-headquartered Capgemini to strengthen its footprint in North America. The US contributes nearly 70% to Igate’s revenues. Igate’s top clients are GE Electric and Royal Bank of Canada, contributing 16% and 10%, respectively, to 2014 revenues. On the other hand, 70% of Capgemini’s revenues comes from Europe, and only 20% from the US, by far the biggest IT outsourcing market in the world.
Igate employs 33,000 people, most of that in India. In January, Over 40% of Capgemini’s global workforce of 1.41 lakh employees is based in India.
With Igate, Capgemini will rival Accenture and IBM in its people strength in India. Accenture and IBM have 1 lakh or more employees here.
“Capgemini has been trying to grow presence in tier II spoke-centres in India to price competitively, but hasn’t gained the level of scale offshore as its primary competition. It has stated that it wants to grow offshore (not just nearshore), so Igate’s footprint will definitely help. Capgemini acquired Kanbay in 2006, which was a successful acquisition and it really got them started in India. So they probably view the Igate acquisition as a similar story,” said Phil Fersht, CEO of US-based HFS Research.
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