After strengthening their financial services business, Religare Enterprises, the erstwhile Ranbaxy promoters’, Malvinder and Shivender Singh are now set to focus on their IT venture, Fortis Financial Services (FFS), a BSE-listed entity, which will soon be rechristened as Religare Technova.
According to sources, the brothers’ are all set to pump in more than Rs 500 crore over the next 18-24 months to organically grow their IT brand domestically as well as internationally. Moreover, as sources within FFS inform ET, the promoters will allocate additional funds for couple of acquisitions in the IT and IT-enabled services spaces that the company is scouting for currently.
According to a source in FFS, “We are already in the process of identifying a few companies in the IT and IT-enabled services space (essentially KPOs) for acquisitions. These acquisitions will be separate from the funds allocated for strengthening our brand.”
Sunil Godhwani, CEO & MD, Religare Enterprises, who is FFS’s official spokesperson was not available for comment. Repeated calls to his phone went unanswered. It must be noted that Godhwani is also on board of directors of Ranbaxy Laboratories amongst other group companies.
Currently, FFS has a 300-seat knowledge centre in Delhi, which it plans to expand to a 1,000 seats in six months. “The second round of expansion will focus on extending the KPO footprint to tier-II cities before the we eventually make a global foray. By 2010, we aim to expand the KPO facility to a 8,000 seater one,” revealed the source.
The Singh brothers have steadily build their IT business over the last one year, which has been a captive business till now. “While all the media attention was on Ranbaxy Laboratories, Fortis Healthcare, and Religare Enterprises, they were busy growing their IT business through organic as well as inorganic route,” said a source.
It should be noted that last year FFS had two major acquisitions––buying 76 percent stake in Capital Market Solutions (CMS), an Australian major which provides software solutions and services to financial markets across Asia Pacific and UK, and acquiring substantial equity capital in Asian CERC Information Technology (ACERC), a IT solution provider to financial securities space in India.
“While these two subsidiaries will focus on providing enterprise software solution to the capital and financial markets domestically and globally, the other two subsidiaries which will exist under the name of Religare Technova IT Services and Religare Technova Business Intellect will offer enterprise IT solutions and knowledge management solutions, respectively,” said the official.
The company’s current market capitalisation is over Rs 300-crore.
Last month, the Reserve Bank of India had canceled the certificate of registration granted to Fortis Financial Services as the company had voluntarily approached for the cancellation of the NBFC license, as it was changing the line of business to technology.
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