Under the terms of the deal, NTT Data will pay an undisclosed sum for a 69% stake in Vertex. The company’s shareholders currently include Japanese conglomerate Mitsui and US-based consultancy Logicsoft, and Vertex has offices in Japan and the US alongside its center in Pune, India.
As well as development services, Vertex provides software testing and offers a range of functions around mobile technology. The company’s customers include NTT DoCoMo, Mitsui, and business process and rules management software provider Pegasystems. Vertex Software is not related to Vertex Data Science, the UK-based business process outsourcing company acquired by a private equity consortium in January.
The move for Vertex comes less than a month after NTT Data made a friendly bid to acquire German SAP services vendor Itelligence. Earlier in the year, the company bought a 70% stake in the Japanese business of European IT services giant Getronics.
NTT Data is aiming to increase its operating margin to 10.0% by the end of March 2010 from 8.6% in the first half of its current financial year, with an increase in offshore headcount a major part of this strategy. The company currently has about 450 staff in Asian centers supporting Japanese companies, and is confident of doubling this figure by the end of fiscal 2008.
