LTITL looks for buyouts of software firms

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, JAN. 22. L&T Information Technology Limited (LTITL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the $2 billion conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L & T), plans to invest nearly $20 million to acquire software companies in the areas of health care, telecom, e- commerce and financial services. The company is looking at overseas acquisition.

At a press conference here, Mr. Achyut S. Godbole, Chief Executive of LTILT, said the company was planning to go for an initial public offer within a year. LTITL was in the process of working out the modalities. Its main thrust area would be Internet related technology. The company has tied up with Samsung, a world leader in electronics and communication products, for setting up a Samsung-dedicated centre (SDC) for offshore development.

Mr. Godbole said the centre would come up in Bangalore and it would work on technologies such as telecom R&D, mobile IP, broad brand access network. Samsung would invest in environment and hardware, while LTITL would invest in software and man power. The development for Samsung would be carried out in the areas of wireless communication and IP networks. The Bangalore centre would initially accommodate 40 engineers and would be operational by February. The extended facility would house 100 engineers along with laboratories and would be operational by June.

He said LTITL had already an on-going ODC for Hitachi Limited with over 100 software professionals working exclusively for the electronics giant. It had facilitated clients to move up the value chain by delivering single-to-multiple turnkey projects from onsite/ offshore, right through to setting up of dedicated ODCs for strategic long-term relationships.

Mr. Byung Chang Kang , Director, Data Network Business, Samsung, said keeping pace with the latest trends in information technology, Samsung had also made a foray into the information and telecom arena with a view to facilitating Internet business, manage on-line services and build system integration.

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