IT cos could pursue M&A strategy to exploit EU mkt:Avendus

Indian IT companies could pursue an aggressive M&A strategy to exploit the $287 billion IT services opportunity presented by Europe, a research report by investment bank Avendus Advisors says.

“We believe 2007 could be a watershed year for Indian vendors and their foray into Europe with several small to mid-sized acquisitions and a couple of large transformational ones,” the Avendus report says.

Avendus, India’s leading investment bank in the mid-market segment, focuses on cross-border M&A, Private Equity fund-raising, Equity Capital Market and Debt solutions for high growth companies.  also It is the leading investment bank in the country for the BPO and IT Services industries.  The report is a result of its extensive interaction with a broad spectrum of IT companies and its understanding of the Indian and European IT landscape.

The report points out that factors such as positive economic environment, increasing maturity in outsourcing, enterprise-wide integration, increasing, competition and higher regulatory compliance requirements, along with increasing pressure on IT budgets and tight labour markets across Europe, are likely to drive outsourcing and offshoring of IT services.

While the European IT services market is expected to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.8% from $217 billion in 2006 to $287 billion in 2010, the market for offshore IT services is expected to grow at a CAGR of 60% through 2009, presenting a huge opportunity to Indian IT services companies.

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