Infosys,the countrys second largest IT services exporter,has finally revved up its merger & acquisition engine and entered into negotiations to acquire Lodestone Management Consultants,the Zurich-headquartered management and IT consulting firm,in a deal that could be valued over $300 million. The Financial Express had learnt about the negotiations a week ago. On Thursday,a senior Infosys official confirmed the development on condition of anonymity,proving that all the talk about a possible acquisition was not hot air after all. Infosys is looking at Lodestone because of its immense consulting capability, the official said. Lodestone Management Consultants may consider a sale through a bidding process to realise better valuations for the company. The privately owned Swiss firm was founded in 2005 by consulting professionals. The professionals had consulting experience with large corporations like PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The company had reported a revenue of 207 million Swiss francs for 2011,growing from 181 million Swiss francs in 2010. The Infosys official said that the estimated valuation of Lodestone is in the range of one-and-half-times the revenue of the company. The funding for this likely acquisition should not be an issue as Infosys has a cash reserve of $3.7 billion. Lodestone has presence in 17 countries across five continents and an employee base of 840,with the headcount growing steadily since 2005. A questionnaire sent to Lodestone remained unanswered at the time of going to the press. FE
