The Hindu Business Line : Aptech offers to buy Canadian education co

"There is a Canadian firm we are looking at seriously for a takeover. We have made an offer to them after due diligence," Mr Pramod Khera, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director, Aptech Ltd, told Business Line here.

Aptech, Mr Khera said, is looking at acquisitions in the range of $5 million to $15 million. "In this particular case, we can go for a part-cash and part-stock deal," he said.

He said that Aptech would follow an "earn out" model for the acquisition wherein the existing management continues to run the entity for a few years, and the payment is made based on milestones such as performance.

"Aptech, when it was a combined software and training entity, had adopted the same model for acquiring Specsoft, a Silicon Valley software consulting company, in 2000," he said.

Unlike other sectors, in a knowledge industry, the assets were primarily intellectual capital and customer relationships, Mr Khera said, adding, "the deal, therefore, should be structured in such a way that the existing management continues and transfers knowledge and customer relationships to us."

He said that the offer was made to the Canadian company earlier this month but he declined to divulge the name of the firm.

He hoped that the deal would materialise "in a couple of months."

In addition to the geographical reach, the acquisition will also bring other benefits to Aptech. "First, they have a different portfolio of product that we can incorporate in our network. Secondly, they spend money in content development and we can do this work for them at a lower cost. It would also translate into additional revenues for our content development business," Mr Khera pointed out.

Aptech Ltd is a player in the IT training space with a growing presence in the formal education sector. Its global network includes 3,208 training centres spread across 52 countries.

The company's core competencies are in the areas of education, research and development and content development. Exemplifying its foray into formal education is the Aptech University and the Aptech College, both set up last year.

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