i Develop Stocks Advisory

Infy buy is largest outbound acquisition by Indian IT co. Infosys' plans to acquire UK-based Axon Group plc may spur high quality Indian corporates to go in for similar moves for offering transformational services, senior industry officials say. Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, IDC India said the acquisition signals a trend among Indian IT services firms to enhance their focus from low hanging maintenance kind of services, with a higher bias for top line growth, to high-end domain services that could add more to the bottom line. "It is the first of the many more steps that will ready Indian companies for offering transformational services", he added. Manoj Agarwal, ABN AMRO's Head of Investment Banking for India, said the all cash offer by Infosys is the largest outbound acquisition by an Indian IT company and underscores the continued cross border M&A interest of high quality Indian corporates. "We expect such trend to continue and we believe the transaction by Infosys would act as a catalyst for similar moves by other Indian IT companies", Agarwal said. Industry officials said the proposed acquisition of Axon by Infosys in a $753 million deal is a landmark transaction for the IT industry, as it reflects the tremendous growth of the industry.