French IT services giant Cap Gemini Group SA has bought Beechwood Inc, a New Jersey telecommunications services firm for around $200m, as part of the firm’s push into the US market. After a long period of little inorganic US expansion, the company now intends to push itself up from somewhere between 12th and 15th in the market with acquisitions. The company has confirmed that it intends to make a secondary public offering on either Nasdaq or NYSE to raise cash for acquisitions.
The combined company will offer customer relationship management and billing consulting and management. The CRM market is regarded by some analysts as one of the fastest-growing areas in IT services. Last month AMR Research Inc predicted a 58% compound annual growth rate for the total CRM software market, at some $11.5bn by 2002.
Cap Gemini claims to be growing at 30% in the US, and the American telecoms sector is worth $130m to the firm, with 21% of its $623m annual US revenue. The group’s telecom arm generates revenue of $630m internationally, employing about 3,500 people, 750 in the US. Cap, Europe’s largest IT services company, said the acquisition would bring 400 new employees to the group, along with Beechwood’s predicted 1999 revenue of $80m.
