Infosys To Acquire Swiss Firm Lodestone For $350 Million

Infosys Technologies Monday said that it would buy Swiss technology consulting firm Lodestone Holding AG for 330 million Swiss francs ($350 million) which is expected to help India's second biggest software exporter to improve services to its clients.

The deal, which is expected to conclude by October, will add more than 200 clients in various industries to the existing pool for Infosys. The acquisition will also add 850 employees to the existing Infosys count of 150,000.

Lodestone, which is headquartered in Zurich, is specialized in advising clients on using business management software from SAP AG.

The Indian software services firm is in the process of executing Infosys 3.0 strategy which is meant to deliver high quality growth in the medium to long-term. "A key plank of our Infosys 3.0 strategy is to expand our C&SI. This acquisition fits perfectly into that strategy. Lodestone and Infosys share a culture of unwavering focus on nurturing and maintaining client trust," Infosys CEO and managing director S D Shibulal said.

Infosys had earlier noted that the year ahead looked challenging for the IT services industry with slow recovery in the global markets.

"We are eager to leverage the widely acknowledged global reach of Infosys and its leadership in the consulting and technology arena to deliver greater value to our clients. This will enhance the momentum that Lodestone is already witnessing in the marketplace," Lodestone chairman and CEO Ronald Hafnerv said.

The big players in the IT industry in India are facing intense competition globally. At the same time, experts are of the opinion that the overall demand for IT services will continue to grow in 2012 as productivity efficiencies from IT are now a well-accepted reality.

The IT industry in India is facing rapid changes with innovative cloud services challenging the firms' traditional bread-and-butter-line of business and an increasing number of innovative mobile and tablet apps reducing the relevance of traditional software systems.