Teledata acquires Bitech's Dubai arm

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 16 September 2004, 19:30 IST
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CHENNAI: Teledata Informatics, a Rs 60-crore software solutions provider for the marine and education sectors, has acquired Bitech’s subsidiary in Dubai. It has also picked up a 51% stake in Bitech’s subsidiary in Singapore. Bitech is a Chennai-based software firm. “The total cost of acquisition is $4.5m. We have valued the Dubai company at $3m and 51% of the Singapore firm at $1.5m,” said K Padmanabhan, MD, Teledata. The deals are to be funded out of the $8m raised through a GDR issue. He said the acquisitions will capitalise on the strong clientele of Bitech’s subsidiaries, and market Teledata’s software solutions to the marine and education sectors and utility industries. With a turnover of $4.5m, Bitech’s Dubai subsidiary has clients like Standard Chartered, Caltex, Mercator, Reuters and Emirates Bank. The $4m Singapore subsidiary’s clientele includes IBM Singapore, I Force Consulting and Cap Gemini. The acquisitions will also help Teledata retain experienced employees to work abroad. “We expect both these companies to grow at 20-25% in the coming years. The investment payback will be in about two years,” said Padmanabhan. The company is also aggressively looking for acquisitions to drive the growth of its ERP product — Ship Manager — a comprehensive software for a shipping transport organisation. “There are only nine players in the shipping software segment. We are the only player from Asia. We have made over 500 installations of our Ship Manager. Out of the 70,000 merchant vessels, it is estimated that only 8,000 are computerised. There is a huge potential for us to become a leading player and we hope that an acquisition will strengthen our position in the global market,” said Padmanabhan. The company, which reported a turnover of Rs 60 crore for ’03-04, hopes to grow its topline over Rs 200 crore this year. For the first quarter ended June ’04, Teledata reported a turnover of Rs 45 crore with a net profit of Rs 11 crore.