US-headquartered but India-centric Cognizant continued its long record of acquisitions, picking up US-headquartered but India-centric SAP retail industry consultancy, Zaffera. No terms were disclosed, though Zaffera has around 100FTEs and some IP, so this won’t be big bucks.
Cognizant (perhaps surprisingly) is the most acquisitive of all the Indian majors (see OffshoreViews Q2 2011) though if I am not mistaken, this is its first ‘naked’ acquisition in 2011 (i.e. not associated with a reciprocal outsourcing deal). While others talk, Cognizant acts!
While I’m on the subject of Indian M&A, I noticed a recent report in the Indian media that Wipro is looking to sell off the data centres that came as a core part (indeed the rationale) for the 2007 acquisition of US data centre player, Infocrossing. Apparently, the data centres “(are) not a game changer we want over next three-five years”, according to the report. Frankly, I thought it was a daft buy in the first place, but there we go.