Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced the acquisition of French IT service company Alti SA for €75 million (Rs 533 crore) in an all cash deal.
Commenting on the development, TCS CEO & Managing Director N Chandrasekaran on Tuesday said that it will close the acquisition of Alti SA by the end of the first quarter in the current fiscal, subject to regulatory approvals and will begin consolidating operations from the next quarter. TCS had earlier announced that it has signed definitive agreements to buy 100 per cent of Alti SA for the aforementioned sum. It may be noted that Alti SA had registered €126 million in 2012, up from €64 million in 2007 and has 1,200 employees based in France, Switzerland and Belgium and counts several top French companies in the banking, financial services, utilities, luxury and manufacturing sectors among its key clients.
Chandrasekaran added that Europe has been a key market for TCS and the company has been looking at opportunities to expand its footprint in the region and this acquisition will give a strong presence to TCS in France, which is the second largest market in Europe.
From a consolidation perspective, this acquisition also signifies how TCS wants to increase its presence in Europe, other than in UK. Although in 2006, it had acquired Swiss-based TKS-Teknosoft for about CHF100 million but it was a smaller buy compared to Alti SA.
Also, the IT Services market in France is considered to be the largest in Europe, after UK and Germany and is assessed at over €30 billion. Even as TCS has been operating in France since 1992 with over 50 clients in the country, this acquisition will give the company access to bigger pie of European clients. Some of them include, Axa Banque, Banque de France, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Mercedes Benz, L'Oreal, Aventis and Air France.
Above all, it will also give TCS access to the French public sector with clients such as National Library of France, OECD, NFB, Unesco, and City of Paris among others. “This acquisition underlines our long-term, strategic commitment to France, which is the third largest IT services market in Europe,” Chandrasekaran said. Meanwhile, TCS scrip surged to a high of Rs 1,513 after the announcement, but eventually declined a bit to close at Rs 1,497.40 against the previous closing of Rs 1,481 on NSE.