Home > Business > Business Headline > Report
Polaris looks at niche buyouts within G-7
Sanjay Krishnan & Subir Roy in Chennai |
October 09, 2003 09:37 IST
Polaris Software Lab, the Chennai-based software services provider, is looking at making niche acquisitions of small companies with strong marketing strengths in G-7 countries.
The company, which specialises in offering software services for the banking, financial and insurance segments, expects its products portfolio to contribute close to 30 per cent of its revenues in the next three years, according to a senior official.
Polaris, Chairman & CEO, Arun Jain told Business Standard, that Polaris was mulling acquisitions of smaller companies for two reasons: "We want to acquire front facing companies for marketing reasons in geographies like Japan and Germany. Secondly, we are looking at these companies from the point of view of acquiring clients that they already have on their rolls."
Jain said that Polaris had not yet identified any company nor had it mandated any agency to scout for such companies. "This is our intention and we have not yet started any work on this yet."
Polaris which acquired Citigroup company Orbitech this year expects the product suite in its portfolio to significantly contribute to revenues in the coming years.
"We have 56 IPRs with us because of our acquisition of Orbitech. The challenge for us is to ensure that we are able to maximise our revenues from this. We now can afford to offer solution based offering around this product suite," Jain said.
In its last quarter, Polaris had reported revenues of Rs 153.68 crore (Rs 1.54 billion) and products had contributed 14.1 per cent to the topline. Polaris bottomline is expected to be impacted in a marginal manner by the rupee's upward climb against the dollar.
Polaris has only 42 per cent of its revenues coming in from the United States market, while about 24 per cent is contributed by Europe and the Asia Pacific region. , Jain said Polaris expected flat growth this quarter because of the ongoing process of integration, and expected margins to be flat too.
Jain said that the merged Polaris-Orbitech had set itself a target of Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) in savings in the full year in general and administrative expenses.