Indian software firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has restarted negotiations to acquire Dell’s Perot Systems.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that TCS had been interested in buying the company since last year, but re-emerged as a bidder in the last few days.
TCS had earlier halted negotiations to buy Perot, citing the price Dell was considering as too high.
Dell had been seeking over $5bn for Perot, which the company believed was impossible to get. Cognizant Technology Solutions, NTT Data of Japan and French IT firm Atos are also competing to buy Perot.
Perot Systems was founded in 1988 by a group of investors led by former US presidential candidate Ross Perot.
The company employed over 23,000 people and had an annual revenue of $2.8bn prior to its acquisition in 2009 by Dell for $3.9bn.
Perot provides information technology services to health care, government, manufacturing, banking, insurance and other industries.
The sale of Perot Systems is part of Dell’s efforts to raise cash before the acquisition of EMC.
Dell is planning to sell $10bn of its non-core assets, including software and services divisions, to reduce the $49.5bn debt burden it will assume after acquiring EMC.